French painter, born at Quiévy, near Cambrai. He studied at the École des Beaux-Arts, Lille, 1900–02, then in 1903 moved to Paris, where he initially painted in a style influenced by the *Impressionists and *Post-Impressionists. However, after taking a studio in the *Bateau-Lavoir in 1909, his work was influenced by *Cubism and by about 1917 he was painting purely abstract compositions. Particularly notable are the decorative painted wood reliefs made in 1919–20. In the early 1920s he reverted to a more figurative (though still Cubist-influenced) style, in which he did landscapes and portraits, but from about 1926 he turned to pure abstraction again and in 1931 he was a founder member of the *Abstraction-Création association. After the Second World War he painted completely flat compositions featuring simple geometrical shapes (circles, triangles, crescents, and so on) in pure, vivid, unmodulated colours.