From his early series "Contrastes de formes" (1913-14), the first fully abstract work to emerge from Cubism, through to his last realistic paintings of construction workers in the early 1950s, Fernand Leger's lifelong concern was to capture the pulse and dynamism of contemporary life. Published to accompany a retrospective exhibition at The Museum of Modern Art, New York, this work describes the painter as an adroit negotiator in the century's long quarrel between abstraction and representation. Reproductions of both paintings and drawings span all aspects of the work. The texts include an account of Leger's experience of the US during his several visits and wartime residency, and of the conceptual link between his art and the culture of 20th-century America.