Le Corbusier saw himself as much a visual artist as an architect. Yet
his work as an accomplished painter and sculptor has only recently begun
to be fully understood and appreciated. Sardinian sculptor Costantino
Nivola met Le Corbusier in 1946 in New York City. "Corbu" was
collaborating with Brazilian architect Oscar Niemeyer on the United
Nations Headquarters, while Nivola had been living there in exile since
1939. Their encounter marked the beginning of a lifelong friendship. The
architect would come to share the artist's Greenwich Village studio
while working on the United Nations Headquarters, and he also created
two murals in the kitchen of Nivola's East Hampton home in the 1950s.
Over time, Nivola collected six paintings, six sculptures, and some
three hundred drawings by his friend. Today, these paintings,
sculptures, and drawings are held in various galleries and museums
across Europe and the Americas. Le Corbusier: Lessons in Modernism
tells the story for the first time of this remarkable collection,
exploring its significance in the evolution of Le Corbusier's visual art
and its impact on the reception of his art in the United States.
