Louis Abel-Truchet
Louis Abel-Truchet was born in Versailles, France in 1857. He was a French
painter and poster artist, best known for his landscapes, genre scenes, and his
depictions of the Parisian nightlife. Louis-Truchet studied under Jean-Joseph
Benjamin-Constant and Jules Lefebvre at the Academie Julien in Paris. He
was one of the first exhibitors at the Salon d’Automne in 1903 and in 1907,
created the “Societe des Humoristes” with Louis Vallet. In 1910, he became a
member of the Societe Nationale des Beaux-Arts and was named a Knight in
the Legion of Honour the following year. During WWI, he served as a volunteer
and was appointed an assistant to the artist Guirand de Scevola who
headed the Camouflage Division. Louis-Truchet originally worked in Paris
to organize the central workshop and continued working as an artist drawing
caricatures for Le Petit Journal. Shortly before the end of the war, he was
wounded and died at a military hospital in Auxerre. In 1919, his works were
part of an exhibit at the Salon d’Automne which honored artists who had
died during the war. Following his death, his widow Julia Abel-Truchet who
was also a painter took over his Montmartre workshop and became a portrait painter.