Armand Massonet was born on 23rd February in Saint-Gilles, Brussels and did his formative artistic training at L'Académie de Dessin de Saint-Gilles from 1913 to 1914.
During the First World War, he was attached to the army as an official war artist and this appointment was later repeated during the Second World War. The journal he contributed to most in the 1914-1918 conflict was "La Claque à Fond", a review for the soldiers in the trenches. In 1916, he designed the memorial to the war dead at the Military Cemetery at Oostvleteren but at the cessation of hostilities, he returned to life as a creative artist and was a founder member of L'École Normale de Charles Buls in Brussels before continuing to study art and design between 1918 and 1919 at L'Academie de Bruxelles.
Massonet then moved to Paris for a lengthy period and honed his technique at L'École Nationale des Beaux-Arts under the tutelage of the esteemed French portrait painter, Ferdinand Cormon. His paintings at this time were predominantly watercolors and depicted figures, genre scenes and images of the war in a spontaneous and lively manner with refined brush-strokes. He depicted the lives of his immediate associates and social circle, personalities and the people populating Brussels. Many of his works are personal and intimate, almost anecdotal, but always the light and the way it interacts with the subject, plays a significant role.
In 1952 he exhibited at Le Salon d'Armée in Paris and at Les Artistes Français in 1952 and 1960. In addition to being a painter in oils and watercolors, he was also a designer, illustrator, sculptor and poster designer. The last saw him produce a number of posters for the Belgian Railway around 1950. He also illustrated books such as "Un Peintre à Paris" "L'Album des Champagnes" and "L'Homme s'est batu".
He was awarded the Conrad Chapman First Prize in 1968 and examples of his paintings can be seen in Le Musée et au Cabinet des Estampes and Le Musée Royal des Beaux-Arts in Brussels
Bibliography: Arto Dictionnaire Biographique Arts Plastiques en Belgique
