He took his first art lessons in the public schools of the
16th arrondissement. Later, he studied with
Léon Germain Pelouse and
Auguste Allongé and had his début at the Salon des Artistes Français in 1886. He then became a teacher at the
Académie Julian, where his pupils included a group known as the "French Art Missionaries" (
Lorus Pratt,
John B. Fairbanks,
Edwin Evans and
John Hafen), who had been sent from Utah in 1890 by the
LDS Church to improve their skills for painting murals in the
Salt Lake Temple. In 1900, he was among those painters commissioned to provide decorations for
Le Train Bleu, a famous restaurant inside the
Gare de Lyon. That same year, he was awarded a Silver Medal at the
Exposition Universelle. His son Yves also became a painter; working under the name . ==See also==