Born in Brussels to a wealthy jeweler. LEON FREDERIC showed artistic talent from early childhood. From 1871 he worked as an assistant to the artist-decorator Charles Albert. His parents did not interfere with their son’s desire to become an artist and paid for his education at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts. His teacher at the academy was Jean-François Portel, an orientalist artist, a representative of classicism and romanticism. He studied from 1871 to 1878.

After graduating from the academy, he joined a group of young artists who rented a studio to work with live models and continued his painting studies. In 1876-1878, he prepared for the Rome Prize competition in order to have the opportunity to visit Italy at the state’s expense and undergo an internship there as an artist, but in the end he did not receive the prize. However, the artist received financial support from his father and nevertheless went to Italy, where he visited Naples, Rome, Florence and Venice. During his stay in Italy, his drawing technique strengthened, which is influenced by the artistic technique of Sandro Botticelli.

In 1879, upon returning from Italy, Frederic made his debut at the Brussels Salon and became a member of the group of artists “L’Essor” – representatives of graduates and students of the Royal Academy. This community, founded in 1876, helped its members both financially and organizationally (organizing exhibitions, purchasing consumables, etc.).

In 1883, Frederic moved to the town of Nafretoeur, in the Belgian Ardennes, and from there traveled to England, Germany and the Netherlands. In 1898, at the insistence of Alexander Benois, a number of his works were purchased by Princess M.K. Tenisheva for an exhibition in St. Petersburg [5]. Benois wrote: “In those years, I was under the special charm of the artist I had ‘discovered’. I fell in love with him after his first paintings, which I saw at exhibitions in Munich and Paris; I never stopped telling everyone about them, and I often managed to infect others with my enthusiasm.

After marrying in 1899, he bought a house in Schaerbeek, where he lived until his death in 1940 and where a street was named in his honor (French: rue Léon Frédéric).
His work was influenced by the Pre-Raphaelites, symbolism, realism and naturalism (J. A. Tugenhold even described him as the “Belgian Bastien-Lepage”.