Guy Pène du Bois was an American painter, critic, and educator, active in the center of the New York art scene of the early 20th century. Born in America to a French family, Pène du Bois began his art training as a teenager with William Merritt Chase at the New York School of Art. In 1902 he entered Robert Henri's class there, and the charismatic instructor encouraged him to focus on the life around him. Pène du Bois would be best known for his stylized paintings of modern urban subjects. In 1905 he studied with French illustrator Théophile Steinlen and by 1906 was working as an illustrator and cartoonist at the New York American. He began to publish criticism two years later, eventually becoming editor of the magazine Arts and Decoration and a founder of Reality: A Journal of Artists' Opinions. In 1940, he published his autobiography, Artists Say the Silliest Things.
