Maximilien Luce (1858–1941) was born in Paris on 13 March 1858 into a modest family. At fourteen he was apprenticed to a wood engraver and took evening classes in drawing. In 1887 he showed at the Salon des Indépendants and met Camille Pissarro, Georges Seurat and Paul Signac. He took up their divisionist technique, painting in separate dabs of pure colour, and became one of the central figures of Neo-Impressionism.
Luce was also a convinced anarchist. After the assassination of President Sadi Carnot in 1894 he was arrested, and he was released for lack of serious evidence. He contributed illustrations to anarchist and socialist papers such as Le Père Peinard, but kept his political anger for those pages. In his paintings he showed the dignity of work: builders on the great construction sites of Paris, rolling-mill workers in the furnaces of Charleroi.
From the late 1890s he loosened his touch and moved away from strict pointillism. In 1917 he discovered Rolleboise, a village on the Seine near Mantes, and bought a house there in 1920. Its river banks and country life fill his later landscapes. He died in Paris in February 1941, and is buried at Rolleboise.