Le Corbusier, Modern Prints at Kass/Meridian

Le Corbusier (1887-1965),
Swiss Born painter/architect, Le Corbusier played a significant role in the development of minimalist modern art and architecture. After initial training in engraving, he soon turned to architecture and studied under several leading architects throughout Europe. While living in Paris, he met Amédée Ozenfant who encouraged him to begin painting. Together they created "Purism" an offshoot of Cubism. Purism abandoned the complex structures of analytical cubism to focus on pure, pared down geometry and forms. With an exhibition of their work in this new style came the series of commentaries "After Cubism" in which Le Corbusier defined the movement, stressing a combination of art and science, decisiveness and purity. Le Corbusier, still an architect by trade, tranferred the ideals of Purism into a new language of architecture championed in the book "Towards a New Architecture". Throughout his long career as an architect, he continued to paint and has exhibited in Paris and abroad. A retrospective of his visual work was held at the Musée d'Art Moderne in Paris, in which a permanent gallery has been reserved to him since 1955.