Maximilien Luce
He was trained in the studio of Carolus-Duran, one of the most admired French painters of the Third Republic. Although he was grateful for his teacher, Maximilien Luce hurried to become an independent artist, resolutely libertarian, almost anarchist. His political tendencies had even earned a few days in prison in his youth! Nonetheless he went on criticizing the working class’s misery, colonialism and wars… This didn’t keep him from becoming an authentic master in his lifetime, whose works are exhibited as well at the Musée d’Orsay as at the Metropolitan Museum of Art of New York. In 2011, one of his paintings, Notre-Dame de Paris, was sold at 2,8 million Euros at Christie’s!