Charles Alexandre Picart Le Doux (July 12, 1881—September 11, 1959) was a French painter, engraver, book illustrator, poet and author.

His grandfather was a glass painter, Louis Charles Auguste Picart Le Doux, who executed the south rose window of Notre-Dame de Paris.

He studied at the Lycée Janson-de-Sailly before committing to an artistic career, first taking courses at the Académie Julian under Marcel Baschet, then at the Beaux-Arts de Paris in Saint-Germain-des-Prés until 1902, when he moved to Montmartre.

In his memoir Monelle de Montrmatre (1953) he wrote,Not satisfied by the teaching, practically nil, at the École des Beaux-Arts, I spent hours of pictorial incubation in the Durand-Ruel gallery.

In 1913, Picart Le Doux participated in the mock election of the fou littéraire [fr] (literary lunatic) Jean-Pierre Brisset as the "Prince of Thinkers," a hoax engineered by Jules Romains that culminated with a procession, speeches, and a banquet at the Hôtel des sociétés savantes (Paris) [fr] celebrating the eccentric Brisset, then in his seventies.

[12][13][14] At the time World War I began, Picart Le Doux was living on Rue Gabrielle [fr], across from Max Jacob, with a view of Sacré-Cœur.

On August 2, the day Germany occupied Luxembourg and exchanged fire with French units, he wandered through Paris, horrified at the celebrations in the streets.

"[17] Quickly drafted into the French army, he paid a last visit to his studio, "which I thought I would never see again," and slipped into his pocket his copy of Rimbaud's Les Illuminations, the book he deemed "the most apt to console me for the stupidity of men.

[19]In his role as a medic, for four years Picart Le Doux daily witnessed the worst suffering and death imaginable; amid "the sickening smell of filth and bloody juice oozing from the blotter of bandages," he was often the last person to whom a dying man spoke.

"[22]Anticipating the German invasion of Poland in 1939, and seeking a safe haven, Picart Le Doux left Paris with his wife and daughter and moved to Touraine.

On September 1, Jules Romains welcomed them to his home in Saint-Avertin, the Manoir de la Grand'Cour [fr], where Picart Le Doux set up an atelier in the orangery.

Romains wrote: "Thanks to them, I have kept from that winter, still at peace but imbued with a dull anguish, a memory of friendship, fantasy, and grace that helped create an atmosphere that was still breathable.

[25][26] The artist captioned his work with a rhyming couplet: "Loire a la chair de lys, fille noble et rebelle/ainsi le doux fardeau vint l'echoir d'etre belle."

[27] After the war, Picart Le Doux returned to Paris to his home at the end of a courtyard at 40, rue Boissonade [fr], described by Romains as "a small one-story house, the main room of which was a large atelier.

[28]At the same time, a high point of his career came with the publication in 1945 of the book Picart Le Doux, which presented reproductions of many of his works, and collected essays on the artist by thirteen writers published over thirty-five years, from Yvanhoé Rambosson in 1910 to Luc Durtain in 1945.

His works included an essay about his late friend Aristide Maillol (1950), a memoir, Monelle de Montmartre (1953), and two books of poetry, Discrédit (1956) and Nacres, thrènes et poèmes (1959).

Picart Le Doux painted self-portraits, portraits of family and notable friends, still lifes, impressionistic landscapes, and murals.

[31][32] Louis Vauxcelles wrote, "His nudes, of a direct and dazzling frankness, testify, in addition to a virtuosity of execution...to the reasoned admiration that the artist has for his true master, Manet.

"[33] Georges Duhamel wrote, "What I like most about painting is the human figure…he offers it to us, all historical contingencies abolished, in its aspect of eternity, in its animal and divine purity at the same time.

"[40] Picart Le Doux's second wife, Marcelle, was about fifteen years younger than him, and was remembered by Lise Jules-Romains as "a colorful woman brimming with vitality…beautiful, in a rather old-fashioned style and slightly overweight."

But, whether we deplore it or not, the role of the art dealer in the success of a painter is too important not to regret that Picart Le Doux did not have, in this regard at least, a more complacent character.

"[44] The book Picart Le Doux, published in 1945, indicates that at that time works by the artist were also in museums in Algiers, Bagnols-sur-Cèze, Casablanca, The Hague, Monaco, Nice, and Saint-Quentin.