Signed twice: l.d.: N. Khodossevitch, p.d.: Nadia Leger
On the reverse: portrait of a young woman, p.d. ownership stamp of N. Khodossevitch-Leger.
A drawing by Nadia Léger (then Wanda Chodasiewicz-Grabowska) from her years of study at the Académie Moderne Fernand Léger and Amedée Ozenfant in Paris, where she left in 1925. The style and subject matter of the scene is inspired by works from Léger's so-called Mechanical Figuration period of the 1920s. The drawing bears a double signature - on the left, the artist's maiden name in French transcription; on the right, the name she used from around 1925.
♣ to the auctioned price, in addition to other costs, will be added a fee resulting from the right of the artist and his heirs to receive remuneration in accordance with the Law of February 4, 1994 - on copyright and related rights (droit de suite)
Nadia Léger (Wanda Chodasiewicz-Grabowska; Możanka 1904 - Grasse 1982) - painter, associated with the Parisian avant-garde. Born into a Russified Polish family, Wanda Chodasiewicz initially studied with Wladyslaw Strzeminski at the Smolensk branch of the Suprematist academy founded by Kazimir Malevich in Vitebsk (she later claimed to have been a student of Malevich as well). With Strzeminski's encouragement, she began studying at the Warsaw School of Fine Arts in the studio of Milosz Kotarbinski in 1923. In the same year, she married her fellow student, painter Stanislaw Grabowski (1901-1957), and went to Paris with him in 1924. Here she took up studies at the Académie Moderne, run by Fernand Léger and Amadée Ozenfant. In 1927-1928, together with the poet Jan Brzękowski, she edited the French-Polish magazine "L'Art Contemporain - Contemporary Art," and maintained close contacts with the Cercle et Carré community. In 1930 she collaborated with Strzeminski in acquiring works for the International Collection of Modern Art of the a.r. group in Lodz - the collection also included her painting (now the only work by Nadia Leger in the Polish collection). The artist participated in exhibitions: the Léger atelier at Galerie d'Art Contemporain (1926), together with a group of students of the Académie Moderne at Galerie Aubier (1927); the Premier Salon d'Art Français Independant and the exposition d'Art Polonais Moderne at Galerie Bonaparte (1929), as well as the exhibition of the Cercle et Carré group at Galerie 23 (1930). In 1932, she became involved with Léger, whom she married in 1952. She became his assistant and participated in all the work of his atelier. In the late 1940s, the Legers settled in Gif-sur-Yvette near Paris, where Nadia created an art salon for painters and art critics. After Léger's death in 1955, she devoted herself to promoting his work.
The artist succumbed to her fascination with Soviet communism. In the 1930s, she joined the French Communist Party. During this time, she began to return to her original name Nadia, and also began to sign her name otchestvo - Petrova. In the postwar period, she became involved in Soviet artistic life.
