Charles Fréchon joined the Académie de Peinture et de Dessin in Rouen in 1879 and met Joseph Delattre and Charles Angrand. He then went to Paris and in 1881 enrolled at the Académie Colarossi. When he returned to Rouen he painted mainly from life.Fréchon painted landscapes in an Impressionist style and was one of the instigators of the so-called School of Rouen. The School took its name from the fact that painters such as Joseph Delattre, Léon Jules Lemaître and Charles Angrand painted the region, working outdoors in opposition to the official aesthetic and sometimes adopting the Divisionist technique. Fréchon's banks of the Seine, fields under snow and orchards in blossom are executed in pale tones applied with small brushstrokes.

In 1887 the piece he sent to the Paris Salon was accepted. He began exhibiting in 1894 at the Salon des Indépendants and showed work at the Salon d'Automne from 1903. He also exhibited regularly in Normandy. His first solo exhibition was held in Paris by the Galerie Durand-Ruel in 1901. His work featured posthumously in 2003 at the group exhibition Around Impressionism: Nineteen Painters from the School of Normandy ( Autour de l'Impressionnisme: Dix-neuf Peintres de l'École Normande) at the Maison des Arts in Antony.

Museum and Gallery Holdings

Louviers: The Pré aux Loups; Hillside in Beauvoisin; Boulevard Cauchoise; Forest Corner at St-Aignan
Rouen: Landscape; Spring Foliage