La Belle Dame sans Merci - Public domain portrait painting

George Barbier is one of the defining artist-illustrators of Art Deco, the school of visual arts, architecture and design that took its name – an abbreviation for Arts Décoratifs – from the Exposition Internationale des Arts Décoratifs et Industriels Modernes (International Exhibition of Modern Decorative and Industrial Arts) held in Paris in 1925. Born into a well-to-do family in Nantes in western France, Barbier studied at the Ecole Régionale du Dessin et des Beaux-Arts and made his entrance into the Nantes art.