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FERNAND LÉGER AND THE ROOFTOPS OF PARIS In the second half of the nineteenth century, we see the emergence of modern Paris, with its wide boulevards, elegant architecture, large department stores and countless restaurants and cafés. The large museums and exhibitions of contemporary art, the Salons, prove highly attractive to artists. For several decades, Paris is the capital of modern art, where many innovations are developed. Born in Normandy, Fernand Léger settles in Paris as an architectural draftsman in 1900, but decides to become an artist in 1903. In 1908, he makes a radical departure from the colourful impressionistic paintings that he produced previously and seeks possibilities to express his increasing penchant for abstraction and pronounced forms. In 1911 he moves in to a studio on the top floor of a building on the rue de l’Ancienne-Comédie, which overlooks the roofs and smoking chimneys of the Latin Quarter. He uses this view to force a breakthrough in his work. In the series of works created there, entitled Fumées sur les toits ( Smoke over the Rooftops ), Léger proceeds from relatively realistic and monochrome towards increasingly abstract and colourful. The series thus becomes a stepping stone to the cubist work he creates in the period 1911 to 1914. In 1999, the Triton Collection Foundation acquired Léger’s Bastille Day ( 1912 – 1913 ). Although a second painting was known to exist on the back, it was thought that this work had been damaged beyond repair. However, recent research and restoration work have revealed a painting from the series Smoke over the Rooftops. That discovery forms the inspiration for this exhibition. Fernand Léger and the rooftops of Paris is produced in collaboration with the Triton Collection Foundation. Concurrently with Fernand Léger and the rooftops of Paris, the museum presents Analogous to Léger next to Expo 1, where Jan Robert Leegte (1973 ) and Harm van den Dorpel (1981 ) both respond to the painting Smoke over the Rooftops from the Triton Collection Foundation with a digital artwork.