Born in Marseille to an amateur painter father, Max Papart quickly fell in love with painting. He became an engraver-printer, but continued to paint and study the great masters in parallel. After settling in Paris in 1933, he exhibited at the Salon des Indépendants and began aquatint engraving. After the 2nd World War, he decided to make a living from his painting and befriended writers such as Jacques Prévert, Georges Ribemont-Dessaignes and André Verdet, whose works he illustrated. Extremely curious, Papart tries his hand at watercolour, oil painting, lithography, drypoint engraving, chisel and aquatint, but also collage and sculpture. He exhibited in Paris but also abroad: in Japan, Switzerland, the United States, Germany, Sweden... From 1981, he moved to the United States, to New Orleans. He died on August 29, 1994 in Paris.