During the 1950s, Fernand Léger grew more fascinated with the possibilities of other media and pushed his practice to incorporate a range of new materials: ceramics, tapestries, mosaics, and stained glass. At this time, Léger received numerous commissions, including a request to create a ceramic sculpture and glass mosaics for the Gaz de France in Alfortville in the south-eastern suburbs of Paris.
Léger scholar Pierre Descargues has noted the connections between the artist’s paintings and his later sculptural pieces, writing that:
“The deliberate achievement of his works made them suitable for reproduction, enlargement and interpretation in other media. In Léger’s monumental works, we look to see what his initial project, designed to stand any test, has gained from the use of ceramic, mosaic or wool. The artist went through many metamorphoses. He did what was needed to bring them about. Whatever for? No doubt out of curiosity to see what would become of a painting interpreted in another medium (P. Descargues, Fernand Leger: The Monumental Art, Milan, 2005. pg 16).
Gaz de France clearly presents the hallmarks of Fernand Léger’s later style, which he developed in the 1940s while spending time exiled in America during World War II. The thick, black outlines and bold colors of this style lend themselves particularly well to reinterpretation in wool for tapestries or glass for mosaics.
When Léger first arrived in America, he stayed at the University Club in New York City where he had little room to paint, forcing him to work on smaller scale and often on paper, continued here while devising his design for Alfortville. Following a teaching stint at Mills College in California, Léger returned to New York by 1942 where he was reportedly inspired by the advertising spotlights on Broadway that would suddenly illuminate pedestrians in a rainbow of colors: standing on the street, a man would turn blue then red or yellow. He would later remark, "America has added color to my palette" (Léger, quoted in Art: Machine Age, Paris Style, Time Magazine, 1946.)