Fernand Léger — c. 1925 · ACL-021
Study for the cover of the Europa Almanach, published in 1925 by Carl Einstein and Paul Westheim at Gustav Kiepenheuer. Léger tries two colour schemes side by side: the word broken into syllables, EU-RO-PA, set in discs — black on white and red on one side, white on blue and yellow on the other — crossed by his mechanical black bars.
The printed cover would drop this idea, emptying the discs and repeating the title as a block of type: the sheet preserves the trace of a path explored and then set aside. On the reverse, the squaring-up in pencil, the inventory number and Nadia Léger's authentication.