And now a real challenge - Who is this painter

[egerie]

I beleive he's french and was painting Parisian storefronts. Let me try to explain ;
He puts his easel accross the street from the store and paints on canvas what he sees in front of him : a storefront.
He paints photorealisticaly and his artwords often pick up on the exhaustive texture of the walls, decay, dust, rust, etc. His palette usually is in the grays.

Show us your art-history skills !! :) (because I'd really love to find a book on this artist's work.. and I beleive this is where I saw it from. I'm convinced a lot of people on the forum would love to know him):o

[Gilead]

Try artrenewal.org click on "museum" If you mouse over on the button you can select by nationality. It'll give you a very long list of French artists with birth and death dates off to the side so you can search the whole list that way
Good luck

[Relish Dragon]

Could the painter be James Abbott McNeill Whistler? He's pretty famous. Look him up and see if any of the paintings look familiar.

[Mark Aguilar]

Try Gustave Caillebotte, he was a French Impressionist painter. Works include "Paris: A Rainy Day," The style of painting you are looking for sounds like it is impressionism, which is characterized as catching Parisans in lesiure activities otr the life style of Parisans.