Le Corbusier: Nomades By Le Corbusier

With a versatile career in architecture, art, and design spanning over five decades, Le Corbusier is regarded as a key figure in the creative facets of 20th-century modernism. Nomades by Le Corbusier reveals his contributions as an artist, presenting sixteen works on paper, one oil work on wood, and the renowned wool tapestry Bonjour Calder from 1958.

Born Charles-Édouard Jeanneret-Gris, Le Corbusier began painting shortly after moving to Paris in 1917, where he met contemporaries Amédée Ozenfant, Pablo Picasso, and Fernand Léger. Together, Le Corbusier and Ozenfant developed a movement called ‘Purism,’ which was promoted in their self-published magazine L'Esprit Nouveau. Departing from Cubism, the movement focused on still lifes and explored the harmonious balance of color and construction. Some of these early works are featured in this exhibition, including the painting Nature morte, pile d’assiettes, équerre et livre ouvert (1919).

Le Corbusier began to incorporate elements of nature, prominently featuring the female figure, which became almost the exclusive subject of his later work. Deux Femmes assises (1936) exemplifies one of his earlier works depicting women, portraying them as robust figures in improbable scales.

After the war, Le Corbusier experimented with other media such as sculpture, murals, and tapestries, moving away from ‘Purism’ and embracing a more selfless approach to art making. The motif of the ‘Main ouverte’ (open hand) became a recurring theme in his painting during this period, symbolizing the message of giving and receiving. This motif was ultimately realized as a monumental sculpture for the city of Chandigarh in India, a dream project built 20 years after his death. Standing 26 meters high, the wind-activated, rotating metal sculpture is a testament to peace and prosperity, set against the backdrop of the Himalayas.

From 1952 onward, Le Corbusier created a series of works called ‘Taureau,’ a pictorial group depicting bulls that delved into mysticism and spirituality. This subject became a new icon in his work, replacing women. He wrote: “...And step by step, thirty years after, my mind occupied with other things and, with the possibility of using human figures to create a ‘bestiary,’ were born the successive deformations. And one day the discovery of a bull on my canvases appeared entirely beyond my control. There followed the development of the theme itself (the Bulls VIII to XIII approximately), and finally a change of sensibility with regard to the theme and a new distribution of the elements of the painting.”