Henri Person was born in Amiens in 1876. Person traveled to the South of France from his childhood, in Beaulieu-sur-Mer where the family owned a house.

Person studied at the School of Fine Arts in Paris where he was the student of Cormon, Vallet, Humbert and Thirion. He sent his first works to the Paris Salons in 1903 and then to the French Artists Union in 1910.

In 1890, he met the painter Paul Signac and shared with him his taste for boats, navigation and ports. In the early 1900s, the two painters were established in the small fishing port of Saint-Tropez. From 1909, he exhibited works inspired by the theories of pointillism of his friend Signac at the Salon des Indépendants.

The artist abandoned little by little the divisionist technique in contact with the artists Henri Manguin, Albert Marquet and Charles Camoin. He made numerous watercolors with soft and poetic tones. His views of Saint-Tropez and the shores of the Mediterranean sea combined observation and lightness of touch.

In 1913, his works were exhibited at the Bernheim Jeune gallery in Paris.

Person was very sentimental about the town of Saint-Tropez and he created the Museon Tropelen there, which will later become the Museum of Saint Tropez, with the help of his artist friends Alphonse Stival, Carlos Reymond, André Turin. The project was approved in 1921.

In 1922, the city of Toulon appointed him curator of the museum Tropézien which became the Museum of the Annonciade.