In 1913, he signed a contract with Daniel-H. Kahnweiler who had already discovered Picasso and Braque. During his Cubist period his tubular and curvilinear abstractions contrasted with the rectilinear forms produced by these painters while he became the first of the Cubists to experiment with non-figurative abstraction. 

After having been gassed during the First World War, he was discharged in 1917 and became a close friend of Le Corbusier and Ozenfant. He collaborated with Ozenfant in the Atelier Libre and in 1925 he exhibited at Le Corbusier`s Pavilion de I`Esprit Nouveau. 

In 1925 he also did mural decorations in collaboration with Robert Delaunay for the entry hall of the exhibition Les Arts Décoratifs. During his collaboration with the leaders of the Purist movement his works exemplified the “machine aesthetic” which Purism exemplified. His paintings were static, with the precise and polished appearance of machinery, and he had a strong inclination for including representations of mechanical parts. 

The City	The Country Outing	The Disks

During the late 1920’s and 1930’s Léger  painted single objects isolated in space and sometimes amplified to gigantic size. He produced theatrical decor, especially for the Swedish Ballet, and worked with the cinema. His Ballet Mechanic  (1934) was the first film without a script. 

During the Second World War Léger lived in the U.S. and taught at Yale University and at Mills College, California. His painting at this time consisted of compositions featuring mainly acrobats and cyclists. After his return to France in 1945 his works reflected more prominently his political interest in the working classes. But their static, monumental style remained, with flat and pure colors, heavy black contours and a continuing concern with the contrast between cylindrical and rectilinear forms. 

In 1949 he opened a studio for ceramics with his former pupil Robert Brice and produced his glass mosaics for the University of Caracas (1954). At the same time he was working on the windows and tapestries for the church at Audincourt (1951). 

A Léger Museum was founded in his honour at Biot with large ceramic panels that he designed.  Memorial retrospective exhibitions took place at the Musée des Arts Décoratifs, Paris, in 1956 and at the Haus der Kunst, Munich, in 1957. Léger had a considerable influence over many artists and was hailed as one of the greatest French painters of his time. His works are now rated between US $ 60,000 and 2 million.