Francois Bernard is best known as a New Orleans portrait, landscape, and genre painter. His origins are uncertain but he is thought to have been born around 1829 in France. The Benezit Dictionary of Artists, first published in 1911, lists a Jean Francois Armand Felix Bernard, born 1829, stating that he studied with Jean-Claude Bonnefond and Jean Paul Flandrin at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts in Paris, but makes no mention of Louisiana scenes.

Bernard may have been in New Orleans as early as 1848, but the first newspaper mention of him in that city does not appear until 1856. After that point, he exhibited numerous times, including at the American Exposition in 1885-86. He was awarded a s...