Fernand Léger was born in Argentan, France in 1881. He moved to Paris in 1900 where he supported himself by working as an architectural draftsman. While living in Paris, Léger met the cubist painters Georges Braque and Pablo Picasso who had an important influence on his personal style. Between 1911-1914 Léger started using mostly primary colors and black and white as he moved toward more abstract compostitions. After serving in the First World War he began his "mechanical period" in which he used many symbols from the industrial world in an attempt to depict people and objects in machinelike forms. The artist believed machines and the objects they create are never isolated from the men who make them. His work influenced the art movements of neoplasticism in Holland and constructivism in the Soviet Union. In the decade before his death, Léger’s wide-ranging projects included book illustrations, monumental figure paintings and murals, stained-glass windows, mosaics, polychrome ceramic sculptures, and set and costume designs.