Maurice Denis was born in 1870 in Granville (Manche). He gets his education from visiting the Louvre Museum and discovers his vocation as a christian painter when he sees Fra Angelico or Puvis de Chavannnes. He studies at the same time at the Fine Arts School and at the Julian Academy. But very soon he quits the first one, judging it too academic.
While studying, Maurice Denis socializes with young artists looking for new esthetic solutions. With Sérusier,

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  Biography of Maurice Denis

  Maurice Denis was born in 1870 in Granville (Manche). He gets his education from visiting the Louvre Museum and discovers his vocation as a christian painter when he sees Fra Angelico or Puvis de Chavannnes. He studies at the same time at the Fine Arts School and at the Julian Academy. But very soon he quits the first one, judging it too academic.
  While studying, Maurice Denis socializes with young artists looking for new esthetic solutions. With Sérusier, Bonnard, Ibels, Ranson then Vuillard, Roussel and Piot . . . he organizes the Nabis group in which he will be the theorician. Discovering Paul Gauguin's work will have a major influence on his career.
  In his writings, his manifesto on Nabis esthetism will be often interpreted as an intuition of which will be abstraction. First symbolist then synthetic, his painting will turn to a renewed classicism. Religious themes, intimist or familial settings, Italian and Brittany countryside are often present in his work. Not only he does painting but also easel paintings, wall decorations, stained glass and illustrations (for 23 books). In the 1890s, Maurice Denis will give up traditional iconography for a more personal one, largely inspired by symbolist and epic Middle Ages poetries. The artist travels, discovers Italy, stays several times in Brittany (Perros-Guirec) and in Provence.
  He will teach at the Ranson Academy from 1908 till 1921 and will set up in 1919 the Sacred Art Workshops (with Georges Desvallières) which will train a generation of young painters. His official recognition reaches his pick after the end of World War I and many retrospectives will be dedicated to his work (Biennium in Venezzia and at the Marsan House in Paris in 1924). In Saint-Germain-en-Laye where he spent of his life, Maurice Denis buys a former Hospital in 1914 built under the reign of Louis XVI. He settles there with his family and establishes his workshop. As of today it is still a residence for artists and a museum at his name.
  Maurice Denis died in Paris in 1943. He rests in Saint-Germain-en-Laye.
  

  

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