Cross was born in Douai and grew up in Lille. He studied at the École des Beaux - Arts. His early works, portraits and still lifes, were in the dark colors of realism, but after meeting with Claude Monet in 1883, he painted in the brighter colors of Impressionism. In 1884, Cross co-founded the Société des Artistes Indépendants with Georges Seurat. He went on to become one of the principal exponents of Neo - Impressionism. He began his Pointillist period after spending time with Paul Signac in 1904. His later works are Fauvist, perhaps influenced by his acquaintance with Henri Matisse.

His final years, plagued by rheumatism, were spent in Saint - Clair, where he died in 1910. His pieces include The Church of Santa Maria degli Angely Near Assisi (1909) and Landscape with Stars.

The Allen Memorial Art Museum (Oberlin College, Ohio), the Block Museum of Art (Northwestern University, Illinois), The Art Institute of Chicago, the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, Harvard University Art Museums, the Hermitage Museum, the Honolulu Academy of Arts, Kröller - Müller Museum, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Museum of Grenoble (Grenoble, France), Musée d'Orsay (Paris), Musée Malraux (Le Havre, France), Musée Richard Anacréon (Granville, France), the Museum of Modern Art (New York City), the National Gallery of Art (Washington D.C.), New Art Gallery (Walsall, England), the Tel Aviv Museum of Art and the Thyssen - Bornemisza Museum (Madrid), are among the public collections holding works by Henri - Edmond Cross.