Eric Alfred Leslie Satie, who signed his name Erik Satie after 1884, was a French composer and pianist. He was the son of a French father and a British mother. He studied at the Paris Conservatoire, but was an undistinguished student and obtained no diploma. In the 1880s he worked as a pianist in café-cabaret in Montmartre, Paris, and began composing works, mostly for solo piano, such as his Gymnopédies and Gnossiennes. He also wrote music for a Rosicrucian sect to which he was briefly attached.
Satie in 1920 by Henri Manuel
Satie's birthplace and childhood home, now a museum in Honfleur, Normandy
Satie in 1884
Satie by Santiago Rusiñol, 1890s
Montmartre is a large hill in Paris's northern 18th arrondissement. It is 130 m (430 ft) high and gives its name to the surrounding district, part of the Right Bank. Montmartre is primarily known for its artistic history, for the white-domed Basilica of the Sacré-Cœur on its summit, and as a nightclub district.
Montmartre seen from Notre Dame de Paris, including the Basilica of the Sacré-Cœur
A Garden in Montmartre by Pierre-Auguste Renoir (1880s)
Saint-Pierre de Montmartre (originally 1133, much of it destroyed in 1790 and rebuilt in the 19th century) seen from the dome of the Basilica of the Sacré-Cœur
The Moulin de la Galette, painted by Vincent van Gogh in 1887 (Carnegie Museum of Art)