Before moving to Paris in 1900, Léger apprenticed with an architect and later worked as an architectural draftsman. While studying at the École des Beaux-Arts and the Académie Julian, he was influenced by Paul Cézanne, Picasso, and Braque. Early in his career, he abandoned his impressionistic style and began working in a style that eventually came to be known as Cubism. At the 1911 Salon des Independents, Léger exhibited paintings that solidified his role as a major Cubist painter.
He was recruited by the army in 1914 and returned with a head injury after being gassed at Verdun in 1916. In 1924, Léger and Amédée Ozenfant founded the Académie de l’Art Moderne at Léger’s studio. He developed Tubism, a style in which human body parts and architectural elements are rendered with three-dimensional shading to look like voluminous tubes and cylinders. In 1924, he finished his first film, Ballet Mécanique. Léger moved to New York during World War II to escape, and gave lectures at Yale that influenced many New York School painters. He returned to France in 1946, where he became intensely involved with the Communist Party. He continued to travel and produce works in various media until his death in 1955.
