"Composition aux Trois Profils" (Composition of the Three Faces) appears to be a colorful mixed media with ink and gouache in blue, yellow, red, green, black, on high cotton bond paper. Signed and dated lower right: F. Leger 1937. Estate fresh.Fernand Léger (1881-1955, French) was born in 1881, the same year both Picasso and Braque were born, in Normandy; his father was a substantial cattle grazer. Fernand was trained as an architectural draughtsman and later worked as a professional retoucher of photographs. He was an abstract painter before the War, in which he had a brilliant record. It is often said that Léger was the artist of the machine age, but he was not entirely a man of his time. He knew poverty as a child, was gassed in World War I, had to flee before the invading Nazis in World War II. But there is little of death and destruction in his work. Other men have painted with more passion, few with more exuberance. Léger returned to France at the end of 1945 after spending the war years traveling and lecturing in the United States.Overall size: 39 1/4 x 53 1/2 in.Sight size: 31 x 46 in.