"Born in France, he came to the United States in the early 1900s. He was an accomplished dress designer to the rich and famous of San Francisco High Society. He is responsible for decorating the curved walls in Coit Tower with frescoes (these frescoes are not available for public viewing). In 1936 he painted Advancement of Learning throughout the Printing Press, a fresco at George Washington High School. When asked about the limitations WPA art often came under he wrote “limitation forces one to think and therefore to create…Far from destroying the artist’s individuality, these limitations give him something to fight for. He must solve a problem. ” Labaudt died in a plane crash over Burma in 1943, on assignment to do war sketches for Life Magazine."