Fernand LÉGER

(1881 – 1955)

French painter, sculptor, graphic artist and film director. His early work is classified as Cubism, his late work had an influence on the American painters of Pop Art, such as Roy LICHTENSTEIN | 1881 born in Normandy, France | 1897-1899 architectural apprenticeship in Caen | 1903-04 attends courses at the “École des Arts Décoratifs” and the “Académie Julian” in Paris | 1908 opens studio in the Parisian artists’ colony “La Ruche” | 1914-17 after wartime deployment he begins his “mechanical period”, inspired by the war machinery | 1924 makes the experimental film “Le ballet mécanique” (The Mechanical Ballet) | 1939-45 stays during the Second World War in the United States | 1945 returns to Paris | 1955 died near Paris