Albert Guillaume (French, 1873-1942)

Born in Paris in 1873, the son of a professor of architecture at the Ecole de Beaux-Arts, Guillaume enjoyed success early in his career. Educated in the studio of Jean-Léon Gérôme, where he created genre pictures with an amusing twist, the artist gained recognition as a creator of albums of light-hearted scenes of military life and other everyday subjects, and with these he enjoyed an enormous popular appeal. Like his compatriot, Jean Béraud, Guillaume dedicated his oeuvre to capturing the manners and morés of Belle Epoque Paris.