Le Fin du Monde filmée par l'ange

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Le Fin du Monde filmée par l'ange

Artist Fernand Léger (French, 1881-1955)

Publisher Éditions de la sirène, Paris, 1919

Printer l’Imprimerie Frazier-Soye, Paris; pochoir coloring: Richard, coloriste, Paris

Author Blaise Cendrars (Frédéric-Louis Sauser) (French, 1887-1961)

Date1919

DimensionsBook: H: 12 1/2 in. (318 mm); W: 9 13/16 in. (249 mm); Depth: 3/16 in. (5 mm).
Page: H: 12 1/2 in. (318 mm); W: 9 13/16 in. (249 mm).

MediumOriginal prints: 22 pochoir prints, one with added hand coloring by the artist; 6 incorporate line block reproductions of drawings. Reproductions: 2 line block reproductions of drawings, incorporating lettering (wrappers). Text: letterpress on Lafuma cream wove paper(typeface: Morland, 24 pt.).

ClassificationBooks

Credit LineGift of Molly and Walter Bareiss

Object number

1984.663

Not on View

Label TextThis book was originally written as a film script by Fernand Léger’s friend, the poet Blaise Cendrars. Léger’s illustrations, in strong primary colors and fractured, dynamic forms, were made by applying watercolor through a stencil. Most of the illustrations include fragments of text, their block letters inspired by Léger’s love of street signs and billboards. Cendrars’ story tells of God, a ruthless, cigar-smoking American-type businessman, who promotes apocalyptic war on Earth to maximize his company's profits. It ends where it began, in his American-style office, but now with God bankrupt. Cendrars' ironic and cynical text and Léger’s forceful and witty images imagine the end of the world as viewed through the lens of a movie camera.Published Referencescf. Stein, Donna, Cubist Prints/Cubist Books, New York, 1983, no. 64, p. 78, repr.

cf. Wheeler, Monroe, Modern Painters and Sculptors as Illustrators, New York, 1946, p. 105

cf. Castleman, Riva, A Century of Artists Books, New York, 1994, pp. 170-171

cf. Hogben, Carol, Rowan Watson, editors, From Manet to Hockney: Modern Artists’ Illustrated Books, London, 1985, no. 54

cf. The Frank Crowninshield Collection of Modern French Illustrated Books, New York: Parke-Bernet Galleries, 1943, no. 444

cf. Johnson, Robert Flynn, Artists' Books in the Modern Era 1870--2000: The Reva and David Logan Collection of Illustrated Books, San Francisco, 2001, no. 26

Exhibition HistoryToledo Museum of Art, Between the Wars, Sept. 5, 2008 - Dec.31, 2008.

Toledo Museum of Art, European Expressionist and Cubist Works on Paper: 1900-1930, December 2, 2011-March 11, 2012 (University of Toledo Student Exhibition).