Born and bred in Paris, he was the son of Romantic painter Louis Candide Boulanger (1806–1867) and Adélaïde Catherine Amélie Lemonnier-Delafosse (1829–after 1900).
Boulanger studied at the École des Beaux-Arts with François-Louis Français (1814–1897), Edmond Charles Joseph Yon (1836–1897), and Léon Barillot (1844–1929).
Such was the case of Horace Antoine Fonville (1832–1914), Henri Bidault (1839–1898), Antony Viot (1817–1866), Léon Dallemagne (1837–1907), and Boulanger.
In 1905 Boulanger participated in the first exhibition of the Ain Artists Society, created a year earlier, dedicating his painting "The fisherman"[a] to his friend, the painter Jean-Antoine Johannès Son (1856–1942).
He enjoyed composing flower bouquets to produce still lifes which "he rendered with clarity and lightness", according to fellow painter Son.