A pupil of his father, the military painter Alphonse Chigot, in 1881 he entered the internationally renowned École des Beaux-Arts in Paris where he was exposed to the ideas of the realist movement of the Barbizon School and to Impressionism.

[3] Eugène attended the Collège et Lycée Notre Dame des Dunes in Dunkerque where he met and befriended Henri Le Sidaner, who was to become a lifelong friend and supporter.

[2] He then joined his long-term friend Henri Le Sidaner at Étaples on the Opal Coast, south of Calais[note 1] where they established an artists’ workshop and regular exhibitions that would eventually develop into a school of art, called the Villa des Roses.

[9] Étaples had a tradition of en plein air painting established by Charles-François Daubigny (1817–1878), who retreated there from the outbreak of the Paris Commune in 1871 and of the local Deauville painter Eugène Boudin (1824–1898), a leading post impressionist.

In the period until the start of World War I in 1914 the area attracted numerous artists from abroad particularly the United States, Australia and the British Isles.

In 1893 he married Martha Colle and spent part of his honeymoon in Berck, a favoured haunt of the impressionist painter Manet.Two years later, he bought a house in the new and wealthy resort of Le Touquet.

[11] Chigot's output during the 1890s was of a post impressionistic style, in which he depicted beach scenes with expansive skies, atmospheric seascapes, and local châteaux often with a pond in the foreground.

[2] Eugène Chigot was an active participant in the founding of the Salon d'Automne, now an annual art exhibition held in Paris, which opened on 31 October 1903.

[12] Perceived as a reaction against the conservative policies of the official Paris Salon, the new exhibition was an immediate success showcasing developments and innovations in early 20th Century art.

He continued to be inspired by the light and landscapes of Flanders but he also painted in: Versailles, Normandy, Brittany and Ile de France in the north and in Clisson and in the forests of Nivernais.

[16] In 1913 Chigot's large canvas Pax was donated by the French government to hang in the newly founded Permanent Court of Arbitration at the Peace Palace in The Hague.

In response, art critic Louis Vauxcelles organised an Exposition at George Petit's Gallery in Paris, to which Chigot contributed a painting, with the profits going to the relief of artists.

[19] In 1917, in his capacity as an official government artist, Chigot was approached to join the French forces at Calais where he helped organise a morale boosting exhibition of Great War art.

At Nieuport on the River Yser, he witnessed first hand the effects of the bombardment on the town and created a series of stark drawings and paintings of the destruction.