For Léger, smoke and smokers were symbols of modern industrial life and the working class, with whom he closely identified. The smoker’s face is seen in three-quarter view. His head is turned to the left (the back of it is represented by the elongated half-oval shape at upper center), and his red pipe juts out, with puffs of smoke floating up to the upper left corner. The figure’s massive body is a conglomeration of rotund swirling parts. This is the type of painting that led Parisian critic Guillaume Apollinaire to characterize Léger’s work as “cylindrical painting.”