Albert Laprade was born in Buzançais, Indre on 29 November 1883.[1] He was the only son of a wholesale grocer and a seamstress from Châteauroux. He attended the Lycée Jean-Giraudoux in Châteauroux, graduating in 1900. He then moved to Paris where his maternal uncle Ernest Cléret, an architect and professor at the Gobelins Manufactory, encouraged him to study for admission to the École nationale supérieure des Beaux-Arts.[2] In 1905 he was admitted to the studio of Gaston Redon, and then studied under Albert Tournaire.