Gustave Leheutre was born at Troyes, France on July 26, 1861. In 1848 the artist studied painting under Henri Gervex, Ferdinand Humbert, and Eugene Carrière, and was later associated with the Nabis. In 1892 he was impressed by a set of Whistler etchings of Venice exhibited by Georges Petit gallery in Paris. Leheutre abandoned painting to pursue printmaking. His first prints were made in 1893 and most depict landscapes or cityscapes. He took his first etchings to the printers Auguste and Eugene Delatre with whom he worked for most of his editioned printing.  During his life he produced 160 etchings, seven drypoints and three lithographs. He was most profoundly influenced by the American etcher James MacNeill Whistler. Leheutre was elected to the Royal Society of Painter-Etchers in 1908 but resigned two years later. In 1905 he commissioned to do a series of etchings to illustrate Eugene Fromentin's 'Dominique'.

Most of Leheutre's prints concentrate on landscapes that depict intimate scenes of French urban and rural life and do not reflect his Nabi association. His later work was mostly rendered in oil, with a focus on close-up figure studies. Leheutre's work during this period became rather impressionistic and appears quickly rendered, almost as if capturing a single moment in time. In analyzing such later work, one can definitely make the connection with the work of Impressionist artist Mary Cassatt, who was practicing at the same time period as Leheutre.

Gustave Leheutre died in Paris in 1932.