Which Cubist artist had a background in mathematics and co-wrote 'Du Cubisme'?

Jean Metzinger was the Cubist artist with a documented mathematical background who co-wrote Du Cubisme.

Metzinger and Albert Gleizes published Du Cubisme in 1912, the first major theoretical treatise devoted to Cubism. The book argued that Cubist painting should not merely reproduce a single optical viewpoint. Instead, artists could combine successive perceptions of an object, creating a more mobile understanding of space and time.

Metzinger’s interest in mathematics helped shape this theoretical language. He engaged with ideas associated with geometry, multiple viewpoints and non-Euclidean space, although Cubism was not simply an illustration of Einstein’s relativity. The mathematician Maurice Princet also circulated contemporary mathematical ideas among artists in Paris and became known as “the mathematician of Cubism.”

A common mix-up is to credit Albert Gleizes alone with Du Cubisme, or to confuse its authors with Picasso and Braque, who were central Cubist painters but did not write this treatise. Metzinger was both an artist and an important theorist, and he later became associated with the Section d’Or and Crystal Cubism.