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Educated at the École Normale Supérieure and the University of Paris, where he received his doctorate in mathematics in 1887, Painlevé taught at the universities of Lille and Paris and the École Polytechnique. He was a distinguished mathematician, and among his awards was the Grand Prix des Sciences Mathematiques (1890). He returned to the École Normale Supérieure to teach in 1897.
Painlevé took special interest in the infant science of aviation, becoming a theoretician of heavier-than-air flight. He was the first Frenchman to fly with Wilbur Wright, at Auvours in 1908, and the following year created the first course in aeronautical mechanics at the École Aéronautique.
Becoming interested in politics, Painlevé was elected to the Chamber of Deputies from a Paris constituency in 1906. He served as minister of education and minister of inventions in the wartime government of Aristide Briand, and, as war minister from March to September 1917, made the controversial decision to replace Gen. Robert-Georges Nivelle with Gen. Philippe Pétain after the costly failure of Nivelle's offensive in May. In September 1917 he formed his own ministry and the following month agreed to the establishment of the Supreme Allied Council at Versailles, choosing as the French representative Gen. Ferdinand Foch, who later became Allied commander. Painlevé resigned in November, however, and was succeeded as prime minister by Georges Clemenceau.
Painlevé was one of the founders of the Cartel des Gauches, a coalition of Socialists and radicals, which defeated the rightist Bloc National in the general elections of 1924. He became premier in April 1925 but resigned in November because neither his ministers nor French financial interests could agree on a solution to the financial crisis engendered by the devaluation of the franc. Subsequently, he served as war minister in the governments of Aristide Briand and Raymond Poincaré and was air minister in 1930-31 and 1931-32.
Although not an outstanding political leader, Painlevé was a brilliant mathematician. He is remembered for his work in transformations and, especially, in differential equations and in the theory of functions; one type of function became known as Painlevé's transcendants. He was elected a member of the Academy of Sciences in 1900.
