Jean Puy started his studies under Tony Tollet at the Académie des Beaux Arts in Lyon, before continuing under Jean-Paul Laurens and Benjamin Constant at the Académie Julian in Paris in 1898. He met many of Gustave Moreau’s students at Eugène Carrière’s studio, forming friendships with Matisse and Derain, with whom he started exhibiting in 1904 at the Salon d’Automne. He became sociétaire the following year. Though his style was perhaps more conservative than the aforementioned Fauves, they shared similar interests in landscape painting. The critic Louis Vauxcelles wrote (in 1938): ‘Contemporary art historians…do not agree on the names of the true Fauves. The only ones over whom there is no possible hesitation are Vlaminck, Derain, Matisse, Marquet, Puy, Manguin, Friesz, Dufy, Camoin’