Printmaker, textile designer, interior decorator, and architect Ernest-Marie Herscher was born in Paris in 1870, the son of a civil engineer. His studies began at the Special School of Architecture in 1890 under Gaston Trelat, Honore Daumet, Charles Girault, and Jean-Louis Pascal. The following year he enrolled at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts, where he graduated in 1898.

His career was multi-faceted, allowing for a variety of projects both personal and commercial. He was a member of several groups including the Society of French Painter-Engravers and of the Salon d’Automne, in which he entered three color drawings in 1903. He was a member of the group “Nouveau Paris,” publishing engraved views of old Paris in the Revue de l’art ancien et moderne.

In addition to art and architectural design, he was also an inspector of civil buildings, following in the footsteps of his father and brother. He became a member of the Society of Architects in 1898 and remained a member until 1938. In 1914, as world war began, he was mobilized as first in command of the artillery of a fort in Paris. In June of 1915 he was sent as a lieutenant to the front, and kept a record of his experiences through drawings which were published in the 1917 book “Some Images of War: Woevre 1915, Verdun 1916,” on page 216, as a testimony of his experience. He was demobilized in 1918. Later, as reconstruction of bombed cities began in France, he was commissioned to rebuild the Chamber of Commerce building in Cambrai’s city center. It was registered in the inventory of historic monuments in 2009.

Herscher died in Paris in 1939.