His widow Marie Beau worked towards establishing his reputation as an artist in Canada after his death.

[2] Beau studied under French Masters Joseph Chabert, Léon Bonnat, William-Adolphe Bouguereau, Jean-Léon Gérôme, and Pierre Puvis de Chavannes.

He was raised in a boarding house located at 129 Craig Street according to Lovell's Directory of the Citizens of 1863–1864.

[8] In 1881, he studied under Abbé Joseph Chabert who taught academic art at the Institut National des Beaux-Arts, Sciences, Arts et Métiers et Industrie (1871–1887), an establishment founded by Chabert and benefactors such as industrialist Jean-Baptiste Prat.

[9][10] Marie Chantal Leblanc, then a graduate student under art historian and professor Laurier Lacroix at the Université du Québec à Montréal (UQAM), notes in her mémoire that under Chabert, Beau most likely encountered and interacted with Joseph-Charles Franchère, Ludger Larose and Charles Gill at some point, as all are listed as students in the Nordheimer classroom between 1885 and 1888.

Gérôme encouraged his pupils to be independent and used his influence to help them gain admittance to the Salon in Paris.

Unlike many of his Canadian peers who pursued an art education in Paris, Beau's family was not wealthy so he used his talents as a painter to earn a living.

It is also mentioned that he studied under Léon Bonnat and Pierre Puvis de Chavannes who advised Beau to pursue landscape painting.

One notable early and first collector of French Impressionist art was Sir William Cornelius Van Horne.

[22] In July 1904, Beau returned to Montréal and worked as an art professor at l'école Sarsfield from September 1905 to April 1906.

His brother, Paul Beau had previously collaborated with the hotel's architects, Edouard et William Sutherland Maxwell.

[3][24] During the entire time[24] from 1915 to 1938 he was the Archives' official painter;[12] his duties were to document and illustrate traditional civil, military, and religious customs related to Canadian history, painting the Port of France, and depicting historical figures involved the founding of New France.

[25] Art historians and critics often consider that he cut his career short working for the Archives, as the commissions involved religious, historical and political themes, restricting and repressing the inner creativity of an artist like Beau.

[4] Multiple reasons can perhaps explain this decision such as the appointment of Arthur George Doughty as the Dominion Archivist, and Keeper of the Records, whom Beau admired for his encouragement and his laissez-faire attitude.

[9] As Beau was studying in Paris at a time Impressionism was establishing itself as an art movement, many of his paintings between 1891 and 1899 reflect the era's style.

[32] After his death, his widow Marie Beau and a few of his friends wished to honour his memory by establishing his reputation as an artist.

They tried to interest the National Gallery of Canada and the Musée du Quebec in acquiring more of his works.

In 1974, the Galerie Bernard Desroches acquired artwork and documentation from Madame Beau's estate.