Project for decorating a “physical culture gym”
1935
Gouache and pencil on paper
24.5 x 36.1 cm
Donated by Nadia Léger and Georges Bauquier
Fernand Léger National Museum, Inv. MNFL 96030





The chosen theme for the French pavilion at the 1935 International Universal Exhibition in Brussels was the French household. The young man’s apartment designed by Le Corbusier and Charlotte Perriand included a physical culture room created by the architect and interior decorator René Herbst. Léger was commissioned to decorate the walls of this windowless area, and produced a serious of preparatory drawings before setting about the creation of the final monumental canvas. The dumbbells, balls, Indian clubs, ladders and ropes – all essential accessories for a young sportsman – breathe life into a composition set against a brilliant yellow background cut across the middle by an ultramarine blue strip, like a window open upon the sky.