Top-100 artists:
We use our proprietary AI - LiveArt Estimate™ to calculate current market value for each artwork. Based on this data LiveArt is able to provide numerous insights into artist and artwork financial performance, including:
See the measure of artist investment performance relative to risk. A higher ratio suggests better risk-adjusted returns, indicating more consistent performance with less risk.
Explore the most prolific periods in an artist's career based on artwork production volume and current market value. It also segments these periods by category, offering insights into when the most valuable pieces were created in each category.
Free to sign up. No credit card required.
| Image | Sale date | Auction house | Location | Sale name | Lot No. | Estimate | Price Sold | Condition | Title |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Oct 28, 2025 | Hindman Auctions | New York | Impressionist and Modern Art | 77 | $****** - ****** | Le Combattant (Design for the Cover of Fortune Magazine) |
paintings
25.1 x 16.4 cm (9.88 x 6.44 in)
pen and black ink, watercolor, gouache, stumped black chalk, and pencil on paper
signed with initials F.L. and dated (lower right)
We wish to thank the Comité Fernand and Nadia Léger for kindly confirming the authenticity of the present lot, which will be accompanied by certificate of authenticity and included in the forthcoming digital
Catalogue Raisonné
of the artist"s work.
strong
Private Collection, Stockholm, Sweden.
Acquired directly from the above by the present owner.
Lot Essay:strong
In October 1940, fleeing the war in Europe, Fernand Léger settled in New York, a city he had first visited in 1931 and where he remained until the end of the global conflict in 1945.
Léger"s American years proved exceptionally productive. When he returned to France in December 1945, he is said to have shipped back five crates containing some fifty-seven paintings and more than one hundred twenty drawings and studies. Although he remained closely connected to French expatriate circles and resisted full assimilation into American life, Léger was deeply impressed by the country"s energy and industrial vigor. Reflecting near the end of his stay, he observed: “In America you are confronted with power in motion, with force in reserve without end. An unbelievable vitality - a perpetual movement. One has the impression that there is too much of everything.” (Interview with André Warnod,
Arts
[Paris], January 4, 1946, pp. 1-2; quoted in Simon Willmoth,
Léger and America
, exh. cat., London and Stuttgart, 1987-88, p. 43).
The present work, executed in 1942, is a design for the cover of
Fortune
, the magazine founded by Henry Luce, which sought to be “the most beautiful” in American publishing through its collaboration with leading modern artists and photographers such as Diego Rivera, Ben Shahn, Ralston Crawford, Ansel Adams, Walker Evans, and Edward Steichen. Although this design was never published (unlike the cover Léger completed for
Fortune
the previous year), it marked a renewed engagement with graphic design, a field he had enthusiastically explored after the First World War but largely set aside between 1923 and 1947. The composition reveals how American visual culture reinvigorated his formal vocabulary: against sweeping rays of yellow, red, and blue-colors central to his modernist palette-Léger orchestrates a striking interplay of monumental oil derricks, industrial frameworks, and the colossal head of a man whose direct gaze confronts the viewer. The figure"s stoic presence becomes a silent emblem of humanity"s confrontation with the mounting global tensions of the early 1940s.
Fernand Léger
(French, 1881-1955)
Le Combattant (Design for the Cover of Fortune Magazine), 1942
pen and black ink, watercolor, gouache, stumped black chalk, and pencil on paper
signed with initials F.L. and dated (lower right)
Please note this lot will be on view at Freeman"s | Hindman Manhattan galleries, located at 32 E. 67th St, from October 20th to October 27th (10am-5pm).
9 7/8 x 6 7/16 in. (25.1 x 16.4cm)
Property from a Prestigious Private Collection.
This lot is located in Philadelphia.
