Featuring four women bike-riders at rest, the image for Les Quatres Cyclistes is based on the painting by the same title completed from 1943 to 1948 held in the Fernand Léger Museum [Inv. MNFL 98005]. 

Images of cycling groups in Léger's artwork can be found in his painting and printmaking practice. Inspired during Léger's exile in the United States by the Second World War, his teaching positions on East and West Coast campuses introduced Léger to the life-style and fashion of students at the time. Léger’s best known images of cyclists, in-motion and resting, appear following this period.

Mills College in Oakland is a notable environment where Léger taught and produced work under the Summer Sessions program at the request of Alfred Neumeyer following artist Lázló Moholy-Nagy. Léger was fascinated by the vast contiguous United States, so as transport Léger rode the bus from Manhattan to Oakland. When he arrived, the bold style of the students and impressive landscapes of the Bay Area had a remarkable impact on Leger’s use of color and future motifs such as swimmers, divers, and cyclists. The Mills College Art Gallery held an exhibition of Léger’s work in June & July of 1941, later traveling to the San Francisco Museum of Art.

Upon returning to New York, Léger continued to reference and rework this composition as seen in the painting Les Belles Cyclistes (The Women Cyclists) with the Kemper Museum of Art in St. Louis [WU 4185]. Léger would continue to live in the United States until December 1945 when he returned to found a new studio in Montmarte.

The postwar popularity of Léger’s cycling images, in particular the powerful vibrant women of Les Quatres Cyclistes, led to its translation into the present limited edition lithograph by the Musée Léger.