An exhibition organised as part of a partnership initiated in 2022 with the DN MADE (Diplôme National des Métiers d'Arts et du Design) specialising in stage costumes at Les Coteaux high school in Cannes.
This winter, the museum will be decked out in its finest finery with a display of original costumes directly inspired by the work of Fernand Léger. Over-size coats with graphic and figurative compositions, ceremonial headdresses and masks borrowed from African cosmogony and the spirit of jazz, shirts and capes with geometric and abstract motifs, will make up this flamboyant haute-couture show.
The fruit of the know-how and research work of DN MADE students, the textile pieces and their preparatory sketches and models will offer an original dialogue with a selection of Fernand Léger paintings and drawings from the museum's collection, all of which reinvent the language of lines and colours.
This transition from the painter's canvas to the fabric enveloping bodies will also highlight Fernand Léger's artistic contribution to the performing arts, in particular the creation of stage sets and costumes, such as La Création du monde, Léger's avant-garde masterpiece created in 1923 for the Swedish Ballet Company.
© musées nationaux du XXe siècle des Alpes-Maritimes © ADAGP, Paris, 2024