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.