Fernand Leger is a French painter, sculptor, and filmmaker. In his early works he created a personal form of cubism which he gradually modified into a more figurative, populist style. His boldly simplified treatment of modern subject matter has caused him to be regarded as a forerunner of pop art.
He made a unique contribution to Cubism. Along with Pablo Picasso, Leger crafted idiosyncratic methods of depicting three-dimensional objects in pictorial space. "I organize the opposition between colors, lines, and curves," he said of painting. "I set curves against straight lines, patches of color against plastic forms, pure colors against subtly nuanced shades of gray."