He is known for his realistically painted compositions of ordinary objects such as fruits, vegetables, woolen reels, ears, seeds, eggs, and ribbons, all arranged in unexpected ways.
He was the eldest of four children of the secretary of the management board of the Musée d'Arts de Nantes, all of whom became amateur painters.
After gaining his baccalauréat at the local school he joined a firm of architects before enrolling at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts in Paris.
[1] In 1905, he decided to devote himself to painting, beginning in 1906 at the Salon of the Société Nationale des Beaux-Arts (SNBA), a painters collective.
In addition he created stage sets, several covers for Vogue magazine, and advertising posters.