About the artist:

Jean-Emile Laboureur (French, 1877–1943) was a painter, graphic artist, engraver, and illustrator, and founder of the group Les Peintres-Graveurs Indépendants. Born in Nantes in the west of France, he went to Paris in 1895 to study at the Académie Julian. His mentor, industrialist and art collector Lotz-Brissoneau, introduced him to printmaker Auguste Lepère, who taught him wood engraving. In 1897, he published his first woodcut, and later created his first etchings and lithographs, under the guidance of Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec. Though Laboureur was initially inspired by Lautrec, as well as by the Primitivism of artists such as Paul Gaugin, he is considered to be the first printmaker to be strongly influenced Cubism.