Luc Lafnet was born in Liège, Belgium, and studied at the Académie des Beaux-Arts there; among his teachers were Émile Berchmans and Adrien de Witte. His technical mastery of the etching* process made Luc Lafnet the obvious heir of the great Belgian etchers of the previous generation, Félicien Rops, Armand Rassenfosse, Henri Thomas and Fernand Khnopff, and like them he was naturally drawn to a Symbolist* aesthetic.

In 1916, Lafnet exhibited for the first time, and the following year he founded the group Les Hiboux (the Owls). A finalist for the Prix de Rome* in 1920, Lafnet won the Prix Donnay in 1922.

In 1923, Luc Lafnet married Jeanne van Malderen and moved to Paris. There, Lafnet became closely associated with artists suc...