The Typographer

In 1919 Léger was back in Paris after the war, and the city around him was loud with print, posters, newspapers, magazines, advertising pasted on every wall. This large canvas turns that world into a portrait of the man who makes it, a typographer at his worktable. Léger treats the humble typesetter as a hero of the modern city and builds him from the same firm tubes and plates as his machines, his head reduced to a glinting oval. Around him lies the raw material of the trade, a bright stencilled letter R, discs, bars and dashes, the pieces of type scattered like parts on a bench. He cared enough about this subject to work it through several states, and related versions now hang in Philadelphia and New York.