Louis Auguste Mathieu Legrand was born in the city of Dijon France and studied part time at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts. In 1884 he went on to study print-making under Felicien Rops and in 1896 had his first one-man exhibition. He became famous for his coloured illustrations of can-can dancers published in Gil Blas c.1890-91. The publisher Gustave Pellet, who became a close friend, published over 300 of his etchings featuring mainly dancers, prostitutes, bar scenes and young women of Montmarte and can-can dancers of the Moulin Rouge. He exhibited paintings at the Societe Nationale des Beaux-Arts in Paris in 1902 and had a retrospective exhibition at Paris de Modes in 1911 and more recently at the Felicien Rops Museum in Namur, Belgium in 2006. Ref: Victor Arwas: Louis Legrand. Catalogue Raisonne. Papadakis 2006.