Born in Montfort-sur-Risle, Albert Lebourg was a French painter characterized by the epithet "Impressionist" with all that this expression conveys in the way of talent, refinement, and reserve,. Lebourg fully understood the poetic quality of Impressionism and the benefits it brought to painting.
Lebourg started his studies as a student of Architecture but after meeting the Rouennais landscape painter, Delamarre, he orientated himself to working as an artist. In Lebourg's taste for landscapes seen through monochromatic skies, he follows in the tradition of Boudin and Jongkind. His origins and also his education as a pupil at the Rouen Art School, explain the harmony between his perception and the reality of the landscapes of the Seine Valley.
In 1872 Lebourg exhibited at Rouen and then decided to take up a post as Professor of Drawing in Algeria. Between 1872 and 1877, during his stay in Algiers, he began to paint a series of pictures exploiting the Arabian theme (Arab Fountain, Moorish Café). Lebourg, however, remained true to Impressionism and did not draw from these series any of the extreme conclusions reached by Monet at that same time. His Impressionism is never provocative. It is, rather, a discreet harmony of half tones with the vibration of light-filled atmosphere. In him Paris found one of its most sympathetic interpreters, because he knew exactly how to remain scrupulously exact without being banal.
Lebourg travelled extensively throughout France from North to South, gathering inspiration for his paintings. In the 1880's when Lebourg was exhibiting at the Salon des Artistes Francais, he concentrated on painting land and seascapes in the North of France: Dieppe, Honfleur and Boulogne. In 1894 Lebourg was elected a Societaire of the Societaire Nationale des Beaux-Arts and it was also in this year that Lebourg's wife died and this affected him so profoundly that he was unable to paint for many months.
Lebourg decided to travel to Holland during the years of 1895-1897 and this period saw him returning to his paints and painting in watercolour too. Lebourg also visited Great Britain wishing to see what was currently in vogue in artistic circles. In 1903, Lebourg was made a Chevalier of the Legion d'honneur and in that same year exhibited 111 paintings! However Lebourg's restless spirit took him, travelling throughout Europe again, from Switzerland to Belgium, from Holland back to France! In 1918, Lebourg had his largest exhibition of paintings, some 216 canvases, 2 watercolours and 51 drawings, in Paris.
In 1920, Lebourg decided to return to Rouen but was taken ill in the September of that year and in 1928 died there after 8 years of illness.