French painter, etcher and professor, noted as the founder and director of the Académie Julian in Paris. The Académie Julian was a private art school for painting and sculpture that was active from 1868 through 1968. It remained famous for the number and quality of artists who attended during the great period of effervescence in the arts in the early twentieth century.
The early success of the Académie was secured by the famous and respected artists whom Rodolphe Julian employed as instructors: Adolphe William Bouguereau (1825–1905), Henri Royer, Jean-Paul Laurens, Gabriel Ferrier, Tony Robert-Fleury, Jules Lefebvre and other leading artists of that time trained in Academic art.
Julian started his career as an employee in a bookstore in Marseille. He was interested in sports, particularly wrestling. He went to Paris, where he became a student of Léon Cogniet and Alexandre Cabanel, professor at the École des Beaux-Arts, without being enrolled there. In 1863 he exhibited for the first time in the salons.
The challenges that he faced when in Paris led him to found a private art academy, the Académie Julian, which also offered training to foreign artists and women who had little access to the official academy. Its purpose was to prepare students for entry to the École des Beaux-Arts.
The writer André Corthis (1882–1952), winner of the 1906 Prix Femina was his niece. He married the painter Amélie Beaury-Saurel in 1895. He died on 2 February 1907 at age 67 in Paris.

Link to Wikipedia biography