Unité, Planche

In 1965, Le Corbusier revisited a series of pastel sketches he drew a decade earlier in 1953, turning them into a portfolio of 20 etchings and aquatints known as “Unité, Planche.” Produced in collaboration with Atelier Crommelynck printing workshop in Paris, the “Unité, Planche” works are an homage to the Purism art movement, which Le Corbusier founded alongside the artist Amédée Ozenfant in the 1910s and ’20s. As a Purist, Le Corbusier wanted to simplify the extravagant geometric abstractions of the Cubists, instead using organic, elemental shapes to create still lifes and portraits of women—both of which can be found in “Unité, Planche.” While some of the prints in “Unité, Planche” are black and white, many others feature technicolor backgrounds. After all, Le Corbusier once said, “Color is an immediate and spontaneous expression of life.”