Louis Valtat was born on August 8, 1869, in Dieppe, France, to a shipowner and amateur artist who encouraged his son to paint. Educated in Paris, he studied at the École des Beaux-Arts under Gustave Moreau, and with Jules Dupré at the Académie Julian. There he met Pierre Bonnard, Maurice Denis, and Edouard Vuillard, artists who became core members of the experimental art group the Nabis (prophets). Through them Valtat knew of contemporary ideas about the relationships between colors and experimental spirituality. Valtat was also influenced by Impressionism, Pointillism, and the work of Vincent van Gogh. He traveled widely in Algeria, Italy, Spain, and France, and he had considerable contact with other artists. Valtat and Pierre-Auguste Renoir collaborated on a bust of Paul Cézanne and created portraits of one another.

By the last years of the nineteenth century, Valtat had developed his characteristic style, defined by the use of simplified shapes and highly experimental color. He worked in several media, including oil, watercolor, engraving, sculpture, as well as in stage design. Valtat exhibited five canvases in the 1905 exhibition at the Salon d’Automne at which the term fauve (wild beast) was first used. Ultimately, however, Valtat worked only on the fringes of the Fauvist circle; his bright palette linked him with the group, but he used distorted line and color less than Henri Matisse. Valtat incorporated a wide range of subject matter into his work, from landscapes and nudes to scenes of contemporary French life.

From 1899 to 1913 Valtat divided his time between Paris and the town of Anthéor, on the French Riviera. Later, he lived in both Paris and areas near Rouen and Versailles. He died on January 2, 1952, in Paris.