Untitled, costume design for “Skating Rink”, circa 1921
Watercolour on paper
24.8 x 16.6 cm

Purchased in 1998
Fernand Léger National Museum, Biot
Inv. MNFL 98026


The Swedish Ballets Company, under the direction of Rolf de Maré, started performing at the Théâtre des Champs-Elysées after the First World War, and for five years, before setting off on a European tour with an ambitious programme under its belt, its productions were a showcase for the various theatrical talents of a range of poets, painters and musicians. In January 1922, the Swedish Ballets inaugurated a new season with the presentation of a number of new works including “Skating Rink”. Based on the poem by the futurist Riciotto Canudo, the ballet depicted the poet’s many anxieties, love and hate, harmony and disunion, to the full. The action takes place in a roller-skating rink, and Fernand Léger played a major part in the ballet’s visual design, with brilliantly coloured and highly stylised costumes and an abstract set hanging above the dancers. The interplay of the set and the characters below produced the effect of an abstract painting, its lower part in constant transformation. Léger designed each costume to bring out the dancer’s art while preserving the character’s realism. With choreography set to Honegger’s music, the ballet created an interplay between static set and moving dancers that made the audience forget the stage and live the spectacle presented upon it.