Georges Paul Albert Léonnec, probably the best-known French magazine illustrator of the 1920s and 30s, was destined to be an artist. His father Paul-Félix was a caricaturist, and Georges started working with his father when he was just twelve. Expelled from the Lycée de Brest for caricaturing a teacher, he continued his studies in Paris.

In 1901 his first professional drawings, already showing the clear influence of art nouveau, were published in the magazine Jean Qui Rit. The following year saw commissions from La Vie pour Rire, quickly followed by work from periodicals including Le Rire, Le Sourire and L’Assiette au Beurre.

In 1907 he began working for La Vie Parisienne, the most popular French illustrated magazine of the time. This marked the birth of George Léonnec's lighthearted and flirtatious ‘Parisian women’. From then on a regular collaboration developed between the illustrator and the magazine, and in the 1920s one out of every three covers for La Vie Parisienne was drawn by Léonnec. At the same time he continued to work regularly with La Sourire, and created advertisements for companies such as Renault and Daimler.

Léonnec was mobilised in August 1914, but  remained far from the front line and continued to draw for magazines including the wartime magazine La Baïonnette, contributing to the war effort by boosting troop morale with his frivolous and humorous drawings.

From 1900 to 1915 he was married to fellow artist Élisa L’Houereux; they divorced in 1915 and the following year he met Hortense Le Rétif, whom he married in 1923. She became the model for ‘La Parisienne’, and they had two daughters, Colette and Michèle. Colette served as his model in the 1930s, by which time his drawings had become more demure.

The 1930s were a calmer period in his life. He travelled extensively in Europe with his family, and frequently spent his holidays in Kersaint in Landunvez. In 1935 he underwent surgery for kidney cancer, and died in Kersaint five years later.