Biography

Henri Julien Felix Rousseau was born on the 21st of May year 1844 in Laval, Loire Valley. His father was a plumber and as he worked for a lawyer tried his hand at studying law. His inclination to art having been noticed early on in his life, his father’s meager earnings make it a dream at best with him settling for more realistic ventures. He volunteered for the military starting in 1863 where he stayed on for four years. After his father died he married and moved to Paris to support his widowed mother as a government employee which had meager earnings but managed to provide for both of them. He started to court a cabinet maker’s daughter named Clemence Boitard, and married her in the same year his father died. He was then promoted to a Tax Collecting job in Paris where he was to work collecting duties from farmers who entered the city to sell their goods. This job of his gave him enough time to pursue his childhood dream of becoming an artist. The artist within was so great that age 49, he retired from his job and even with his meager pension continued to perfect his self-taught method of painting.