His parents, with a family history of ironmongery,[2] were Alcide Delacroix, a French adventurer, and British Fanny Woollett.

[9] There, he met and became friends with many artists involved in the Neo-Impressionist movement, including Georges Seurat, Albert Dubois-Pillet, and Charles Angrand.

In about 1886, again attempting to differentiate himself from another French artist – this time, Henri Cros – he again changed his name, finally adopting "Henri-Edmond Cross".

[3] That painting was a divisionist portrait of Madame Hector France, née Irma Clare,[10] whom Cross had met in 1888 and would marry in 1893.

His first residence in southern France was in Cabasson, near Le Lavandou,[3] then he settled a short distance away, in the small hamlet of Saint-Clair, where he spent the remainder of his life, leaving only for trips to Italy in 1903 and 1908, and for his annual Indépendants exhibits in Paris.

This marked the first time he had worked with a publisher,[15] and the piece was featured anonymously in Les Temps Nouveaux, Jean Grave's anarchist journal.

[14] Cross's anarchist sentiments influenced his choice of subjects: he painted scenes illustrating a utopian world that could exist through anarchism.

Beginning around 1895, he gradually shifted his technique, instead using broad, blocky brushstrokes and leaving small areas of exposed bare canvas between the strokes.

[5] Among the other artists influenced by Cross were André Derain, Henri Manguin, Charles Camoin, Albert Marquet, Jean Puy, and Louis Valtat.

Belgian Symbolist poet Emile Verhaeren, an avid supporter of Neo-Impressionism in his country, provided the preface for the exhibition catalog, writing: "These landscapes ... are not merely pages of sheer beauty, but motifs embodying a lyrical sense of emotion.

[14] However, in his last years he was productive and very creative,[18] and his work was featured in significant solo exhibitions; he received great acclaim from critics and enjoyed commercial success.

[4] His tomb, in the Le Lavandou cemetery, features a bronze medallion that his friend Théo van Rysselberghe had designed.

In 1898 he participated with Paul Signac, Maximilien Luce, and Théo van Rysselberghe in the first Neo-Impressionist exhibition in Germany, organized by Harry Kessler at Keller und Reiner Gallery (Berlin).

[19] In 1907 Félix Fénéon assembled a Cross retrospective in Paris at Galerie Bernheim-Jeune, with Maurice Denis contributing the catalogue preface.