Henri-Edmond Cross (1856-1910) was born Henri-Edmond-Joseph Delacroix in Douai in 1856. In 1878, he was enrolled in the Écoles Académiques de Dessin et d'Architecture in Lille. He continued his study in Paris during the early 1880s, painting rather somber Realist portraits and still lifes. In 1881, the artist adopted an Anglicized version of his surname to avoid confusion with his famous namesake, Eugène Delacroix. Cross was one of the founders of the Société des Artistes Indépendants in 1884. There he met many artists of the Neo-Impressionist movement, including Georges Seurat and Paul Signac, but did not begin painting in a Neo-Impressionist style himself until 1891. Cross moved to the south of France in 1891 and eventually settled at Saint-Clair, a small village near St. Tropez, where he lived for the rest of his life. He exhibited regularly at the Salon des Indépendants in Paris, and at La Libre Esthétique in Brussels.