Marcel Gromaire was a French artist who painted many works on social subjects, and is often associated with Social Realism. Gromaire, whose father was an educator in Paris, was born in Noyelles-sur-Sambre, France. He studied classically at Douai, then continued his studies in Paris, receiving his Baccalauréat in Law in 1909, a judiciary career path he quickly abandoned. He frequented studios in Montparnasse. In 1912, he performed his military service in Lille when the war began and spent the next six years in the army and was wounded in 1916 in the Battle of the Somme.

Gromaire returned to Paris, working in a Paris studio, his subject matter of rich dark ochers and browns in his paintings in an ordered wealth of textural sensation wh...