Jean charlot biography

ARTIST BIOGRAPHY:

A French-America muralist, lithographer, easel painter, illustrator, sculptor and author, Louis Henri Jean Charlot was the son of a Russian-born emigré father who owned an import-export business in Paris and of an artist mother of part Aztec heritage whose family originated from Mexico City.

Charlot, who began to draw around age two, grew up surrounded by the Mesoamerican manuscripts and Mexican art in the collection of his maternal great-uncle, Eugène Goupil. He also was fascinated by the pre-Columbian artifacts of a neighbor and family friend, Désiré Charnay, an archaeologist known for his explorations of Mexico and Central America and for the pioneering use of photography to document his discoveries. 

Charlot waseducated at the Lycée Condorcet in Paris where in 1912 he won the French national scholastic boxing championship in the medium weight division. (Among the school’s alumni were Marcel Proust and Paul Verlaine.) He also