Heintz is considered the outstanding representative of the Liège school of landscape painting,[11][12] a movement that greatly influenced Dewis's early work.

There was a feeling among some members of the Florigni family, which traced its roots back to the court of Catherine de' Medici,[15] that "Babeth" had "married down.

He was a widowed army officer (a combat veteran of the Great War) and a medical doctor who, after being discharged in the United States, had returned to France to continue his studies.

[15] In her memoirs, Yvonne remembers that in the early years of Dewis's career, her mother regarded her father's painting with benign indifference.

[13] His younger daughter and only other child, Andrée Marguerite Elisabeth (24 September 1903 in Rouen, France[1][7] - 11 May 2002 in Paris),[24] married businessman Charles Jérôme Ottoz (1903–1993) in 1925,who proved to be less than supportive of his talented father-in-law.

He was the namesake of his grandfather Jérôme (1819–1885),[25] the well-known Paris color merchant and art collector (especially of Corots) who loved to show his paintings to visitors at his shop on the rue Pigalle.

[13] Young Louis had displayed an interest (and astonishing talent) in art at the age of 8 – but Isidore was enraged at the thought that his offspring might waste his time with something as useless as painting.

In a vain attempt to break his young son of his "bad habit," he would, on occasion, throw away or burn the boy’s canvases, paints and brushes.

He ran ads in newspapers; distributed illustrated catalogues; placed advertising on billboards and on trolleys; and published several series of promotional postal cards.

Some of the cards featured famous art, others humorous cartoons and another series bore images of Maison Dewachter signage that had been temporarily erected at well known locations.

[3] In the summer of that year, Dewis staged what was probably his first exhibition at the Imberti Galleries in Bordeaux, news of which reached across the trenches that divided France in the midst of World War I – to his native Belgium.

It expressed sentiments that critics would echo for the next thirty years: In 1917, as part of Dewis's considerable efforts to aid his Belgian countrymen (for which he was honored by both Belgium and France), he helped organize Le Salon franco-belge in the Bordeaux Public Garden.

[9] He once served as the State Librarian at Brussels and had heroically engineered the rescue of truckloads of Belgian art treasures from what was almost certain destruction shortly after the Germans occupied Belgium in 1914.

According to Émile Zola, who knew the Parisian art world inside and out, Petit was "the 'apotheosis' of dealers when the Impressionist market soared and competition among marchands... became intense.

Jérôme possessed a demeanor reminiscent of Isidore's and, as such, dominated the timid artist... at one point talking Dewis out of accepting a lucrative offer of sponsorship by another Parisian art dealer.

"[13] He was free to experiment with different techniques, as daughter Yvonne recalled: He told his family, "I paint as the bird sings" – for the pure joy of expressing his emotions.

Unlike the younger painter of Bordeaux described by his daughter Yvonne – in Paris, Dewis devoted nearly all of his time to painting in his atelier at 28 rue Chaptal or sketching at locations across France and Belgium.

[13] Although he concentrated on his art only in the last 30 years of his life, he was already well known in France and Belgium – and beyond – for his high profile in the clothing industry – and his civic and charitable activities.

He served as the president of an organization in the South of France that worked in the interests of the suffering population of Belgium – and refugees from that country – during the Great War.

He gained international attention for publicly urging the French government to treat Belgians with less suspicion (as potential German collaborators) and more compassion.

[3][54] Dewis and his family fled Paris for the South West shortly before the Nazi occupation of 1940, initially staying with relatives in Bayonne.

An American was heading back to the United States and selling a large house with lovely gardens that he had named for his wife: Villa Pat.

Since travel was greatly limited during the occupation, Dewis often found his subjects within his own garden, in nearby parks and along the Atlantic coast.

Bordeaux's Sud-Ouest newspaper, successor to La Petite Gironde, which had been administered decades earlier by his maternal grandfather, published its lamentations under the headline, "A Painter Is No Longer With Us."

The critic at the Journal of Biarritz had no trouble finding the word that he felt best described Dewis: He was buried in the family tomb at Bordeaux's Cimetière de la Chartreuse [fr].

[58] Eventually, the boxes would be transferred to the attic of Andrée's co-propriété[28] and placed in a locked room that was originally designed as maid's quarters.

[28] Dewis’s art had survived and blossomed despite the opposition of his father, the devastating loss of Petit, an antagonistic son-in-law and two world wars.

Through a chance conversation with a visiting great-nephew from the States[28] (a grandson of her sister Yvonne), the then 92-year-old Andrée and the young American opened the crates and immediately resolved to return Dewis's work to the public.

Experts were retained to evaluate the vast collection and what were judged to be the most outstanding pieces were cleaned and properly framed for public exhibition.

[1][28] On 1 May 2018, the Orlando Museum of Art (OMA) announced that it may become the permanent home of the rediscovered collection of Dewis paintings and related materials.