Leger became interested in the theme of construction workers in 1940 in line with his socialism and sympathy for the working classes, lecturing at the time that art should be accessible to everyone. The human figure is depicted here as more naturalistic than in his previous works, making him one of the few artists interested in the human figure during this period. In fact, Leger, abandoning his mechanical figures of his earlier period, wanted the human figures to contrast with the steel. He got the idea when he drove past a construction site: "I saw the men swaying high up on the steel girders! I saw man like a flea; he seemed still lost in his inventions ... I wanted to render that; the contrast between man and his inventions, between the worker and all that metal architecture, that hardness, that ironwork, those bolts and rivets."
After the completion of The Constructors, Leger wanted the workers to have access to the painting, so he exhibited the work in the cafeteria of the Renault automobile factory and was disappointed that the workers did not seem to understand it.
Three Women
The City