LEROY, PAUL

Paul Alexandre Alfred Leroy (1860 in Paris – 1942) was a French painter noted for Orientalist works. He was a founding member of the Société des Peintres Orientalistes Français (Society for French Orientalist Painters) and designed the Society's first logo.

French by birth, Leroy spent his childhood in Odessa, where his father had a business. He lived in Odessa until age 17 years, which gave him interest in the East. In Paris, he studied at the École des Beaux-Arts. He first exhibited in 1882 and was awarded a medal.

At Beaux Artes, he met Georges Landelle (1860-1898), an Orientalist painter and the pair became life-long friends. In 1885 he visited Turkey and Egypt, with Landelle and Landelle's father. In 1886 journeyed to Tunisia and Algeria, returning to the country's southern region several times during the 1880s and 1890s. His art works were predominantly Orientalist in subject matter at this time. Later in his career Leroy produced a number of sculptures in bronze, representing the more exotic animals he had experienced during his travels.