A French painter associated with Cubism, Abstract art, Dada and Surrealism. He was one of the major figures of the Dada movement in France and the USA but remained as stubbornly uncategorisable as he was influential.

At first he was influenced by the Impressionist paintings of Alfred Sisley, but from 1909 came under the influence of those that would soon be called Cubists and became friends with Marcel Duchamp. He travelled to New York several times around 1915 and met Alfred Stieglitz and Man Ray. Later, in 1916, while in Barcelona, he started a Dada periodical 391. He then moved back to Paris and continued his involvement in Dada before breaking away and developing an interest in Surrealism. In 1925 he returned to figurative painting and became a close friend of Gertrude Stein, also becoming increasingly interested in photography and film. In the early 1940s he moved to the south of France and produced a surprising series of nude glamour paintings, before finally resuming abstract painting in Paris.