15 - Le Corbusier

Le Corbusier (La Chaux-de-Fonds, Switzerland, 1887 – 1965, Roquebrune-Cap-Martin, France), “Ozon – Vichy” (design for a sculpture), 1940–41, watercolor over pencil sketch on chamois-colored machine-made paper, signed, titled, and dated in sepia in the lower right corner, marked with the number “30" in pencil, a discarded architectural sketch and the stamped number "98" on the reverse, 47.8 x 38.7 cm, a closed tear in the lower right corner, under glass and mat in a silver frame with corner joints, overall size: 70 x 60 cm. Limit 14,000 With the outbreak of World War II and the invasion of German troops in 1940, Le Corbusier left Paris. He fled to the small, remote village of Ozon in the Pyrenees, where his wife’s relatives lived. During this time of isolation and scarcity, large-scale architectural projects were out of the question. So the artist eked out a meager living by drawing and selling watercolors. Since art supplies were nearly impossible to come by, he often drew on the simplest of papers, such as textured placemats, notepads, or old, discarded architectural drawings. During his daily walks in the Pyrenees, Le Corbusier collected various natural materials: stones, shells, weathered pieces of wood, bark, and animal skulls. He called these found objects “Objets à réaction poétique” (objects with a poetic effect). The organic, asymmetrical forms of these found objects—whose biomorphic lines he combined with abstract portraits of his wife Yvonne (recognizable by her characteristic bun)—served as direct inspiration for the surrealistic-seeming compositions of his later “Ozone” paintings. After 1947, he translated these motifs into three-dimensional forms for the first time. Between 1957 and 1962, in close collaboration with the Breton sculptor and carpenter Joseph Savina, this ultimately evolved into a monumental series of wooden sculptures titled “Ozon”: The organic language that Le Corbusier had developed in “Ozon” definitively replaced the strict, right-angled geometries of his earlier “Purism” of the 1920s. It later flowed directly into the curved, sculptural concrete forms of his most famous postwar buildings—such as the renowned pilgrimage church at Ronchamp.