Maurice Henri Hensel
Born1890

Maurice Henri Hensel was born in Montmartre, in 1890. Hensel was an artist of l’École de Montmartre and best is known as a watercolorist and painter.

Beginning in 1920, Hensel was associated with the Salon des Artistes Indépendants. He also exhibited regularly at the Salon d’Automne. In 1925 he held a solo show called Figures de Montmartre in Paris at Galerie Bernheim Jeune. The following year at Galerie Bernheim Jeune, he exhibited a group of paintings called Femmes du Sud-Algérien. In 1928 he exhibited at Galerie Barreiro a group of works called Femmes de Paris and Femmes d’Afrique de Nord.

Hensel traveled to Africa shortly after World War I. In keeping with his interests in Montmartre, he painted the local courtesans.

Hensel’s style is in the flavor of the Post-Impressionists, similar in technique to Jacque-Emile Blanche. Like many of his contemporaries, including Toulouse-Lautrec, he romanticized the darker side of the Bohemian life.