Henri Rousseau was born in Laval in 1844. He is not so good at school and gives up his studies very quickly. His artistic predispositions appear rapidly and at the age of 16, in 1860,  he gets a price in drawing and music.
He first works as a bailiff’s clerk, then he does his military service. That’s where he gets his inspiration next to the soldiers who participated to the military outing in Mexico (1861 - 1867). After 7 years in the army, Henri Rousseau works for the excise duty...

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  Biography of Henri Rousseau

  Henri Rousseau was born in Laval in 1844. He is not so good at school and gives up his studies very quickly. His artistic predispositions appear rapidly and at the age of 16, in 1860,  he gets a price in drawing and music.
  He first works as a bailiff’s clerk, then he does his military service. That’s where he gets his inspiration next to the soldiers who participated to the military outing in Mexico (1861 - 1867). After 7 years in the army, Henri Rousseau works for the excise duty in Paris (administration collecting taxes applied on certain food products - a sort of customs at the entrance of the city). Totally self-taught, he starts painting at the same time and shows his works as soon as 1866 at the Salon des Indépendants and will keep doing it every year until his death. Without academic training, his work is not taken seriously; his technique is elaborated, however the childish look of his paintings is made fun at. He obtains a copyist card at the Louvre Museum allowing him to get familiar with masterworks.
  Despite the mocking, his original canvases said to be naive, gain the respect of the artist’s circle. He makes friend with the poet and writer Alfred Jarry who gives him the nickname « Douanier Rousseau » he will keep afterwards.
  Jarry publishes an article full of praise for his allegorical painting « The War » (1894) and introduces it into the world of artists. Rémy de Gourmont, Guillaume Apollinaire, Paul Signac, Robert and Sonia Delaunay, Picasso and many others begin to take an interest in this naive painter.
  From 1901, he became a professor of drawing and painting at the Philotechnical Association, a secular institution, which is for him a real social success.
  After 1901, he teaches drawing and painting at the Philotechnic Association, a charity organization, which represents quite a social success for him. The Douanier Rousseau gets a real aknowledgment around 1905 when he is invited by The Fauves at the Salon d’Automne. What is admired is the quality of his compositions and the colors he’s using in his landscapes, daily scenes, portraits, still lives and in his famous exotic jungles.
  All along his life, the Douanier Rousseau painted closed to 250 paintings of which about a hundred have been lost, some given to the grocer as a payment, his washer woman or his car seller. The Douanier Rousseau died in the most awful poverty in 1910. He was 66.
  

  

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