Léon Abry

His father died when he was fourteen, and he had some difficulty adjusting from military life to ordinary bourgeois society.

From 1875 to 1878 he attended the Royal Academy of Fine Arts (Antwerp), where he studied with Nicaise De Keyser and Polydore Beaufaux.

[1] He began by painting historical and genre scenes, but soon turned to humorous depictions of military life, taken from his own experiences.

He also painted several canvases showing the Belgian royal family as they observed military exercises.

He was a co-founder of "De XIII [nl]", a secession group in Antwerp that included Emile Claus, Henry Luyten, Edgard Farasyn, Evert Larock and Frans Hens.