Pierre Adolphe Valette was born in 1876 in St Etienne, a small manufacturing town, 36 miles south of Lyon. Little is known of his family and early life, except that his parents were poor and that he studied at the local art school in St Etienne. His second wife Andree, believed that he started working at 16 and that he then travelled to Lyon to work as an engraver and painter, whilst continuing his studies. He travelled a great deal and it was in Bordeaux where he was enrolled in evening classes and won a travelling art scholarship in 1904. Valette originally intended to visit Japan, as Japanese art was popular with the French in the late 19th century. The outbreak of the Russo-Japanese War prevented that, so Valette came to England instead. He enrolled in the painting course at the Birkbeck Institute in London, then moved to Manchester in 1905 to work for a printing company, designing greetings cards, tickets and calendars. After attending evening classes at the Manchester Municipal School of Art, Valette was invited in 1907 to join the staff as a teacher. In the period 1906-20, his presence seems to have transformed the school. He was a shy, modest man dedicated to his art, but who did little to promote his own interests. He employed a distinctive French style of teaching, sitting and painting with his students – an approach to teaching unknown in Britain at that time. He worked in a variety of media and styles, but a series of Impressionistic views of Edwardian Manchester, he painted between 1908 and 1913, represent the summit of his artistic career. His ‘Manchester-scapes’ captured the city in all its moods, from the bustling streets during the day, to the sombre stillness of the canals on a cold wintery evening. His large, impressive canvasses depict the streets and waterways of an industrial city cloaked in its smog-ridden atmosphere. They present a fascinating image of a burgeoning commercial centre in its heyday, clinging to its Victorian past, but eager to embrace the modern world. Valette was by nature a keen observer and realist and this, combined with his exceptional understanding of light and instinctive feeling for tone, enabled him to produce works of great clarity and delicate luminosity. His style was distinctively Impressionist, and this, mixed with the damp foggy atmosphere of contemporary Manchester, enabled him to produce some of his best-known paintings. His paintings of smoky, industrial Manchester are clear forerunners not only of Lowry, but of many British painters of the first half of the 20th century, such as Piper and even Sutherland. His most notable protégé, L S Lowry expressed great admiration for Valette, who taught him new techniques and revealed to him the potential of the urban landscape as a subject. He felt that Valette had brought with him ‘a much needed injection of vitality from the colourful art world of France.’ He would subsequently write: ‘I cannot underestimate the effect on me at that time of the coming into this drab city of Adolphe Valette, full of the French Impressionists, aware of everything that was going on in Paris … I owe so much to him.’ Ill-health caused Vallette to resign his post at Manchester in 1920. He remained in Lancashire for a further eight years, teaching privately and painting in Manchester and Bolton. He exhibited in Manchester in 1912 and with The Society of Modern Painters in Liverpool on a regular basis, until he departed England in 1928 and returned to his native France. He retired to his parents’ cottage at Blache near Grenoble. He continued to paint in the latter part of his life, concentrating mainly on French Landscapes. Manchester Art Gallery acquired nine of his paintings. These included his most ambitious work, Albert Square 1910 which depicts the busy city square with its Victorian Town Hall and Albert Memorial bathed in fog. Valette died in 1942. In recent years, his work has become highly collectable. Manchester City Art Gallery holds a substantial body of his work dating from his time in the city, including both portraits and Manchester street scenes. The gallery mounted exhibitions of his work in both 1976 and in 1994. His residence in Manchester is marked by a blue plaque in All Saints. Valette’s contribution to British art had all but been forgotten until 1994, when Sandra Martin produced her book Adolphe Valette: A French Influence in Manchester which offered a considered opinion of his life and work.