(b Le Mans, July 11, 1885; d Grasse, Nov 27, 1925).
French painter and draughtsman. Although he was born at Le Mans, where his father, an officer in the French army, was temporarily stationed, he came from an aristocratic family whose ancestral home, the Château de la Fresnaye, was near Falaise. His education, which was thorough and classically based, was followed by studies in Paris at the Académie Julian (1903–4) and at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts (1904–5 and 1906–8); from 1908 he studied at the Académie Ranson under Maurice Denis and Paul Sérusier, whose joint influence is evident in early works such as Woman with Chrysanthemums (1909; Paris, Pompidou), which has the dreamlike Symbolist atmosphere and stylization characteristic of work by the Nabis.
In 1909 La Fresnaye travelled to Munich, where he came briefly under the influence of Expressionism in paintings such as Entry to the Village (1910; Troyes, Mus. A. Mod.). From 1910 to 1911...
