Alexandre Charpentier

From working-class origins and apprenticed to an engraver as a young man, he became a studio assistant to the innovative medallist Hubert Ponscarme.

[1] Charpentier experimented with a wide variety of formats and materials—tin, marble, wood, leather, and terra cotta work, the latter executed by ceramic artisan Emile Müller.

Among his friends was Constantin Meunier, with whom he collaborated on a monument of Émile Zola, and he had a hand in the sculptural interiors at Le Chat Noir cabaret.

(The other founding members were architect Tony Selmersheim, designer Felix Aubert, sculptor Jean Dampt and painter Étienne Moreau-Nélaton.)

Architect Charles Plumet would join in 1896, changing the group's name first to Les Six and then to Art dans Tout with the later association of Henri Sauvage and others.