Armand Petersen was born on November 25th 1891 in Basel, Switzerland. He first trained at the School of Industrial Arts in Geneva, in the class of goldsmithery and carving. The war thwarted his plans to settle in Paris in 1914. He then decided to join the studio of the Hungarian sculptor, Bêla Markup, who introduced him to animal sculpture, born from the observation of exotic animals at the Budapest Zoo.

In 1924, two years after the revelation of a new animal art embodied by the Polar Bear by Pompon, he joined Paris with a first sculpture, a large Danish Dog, portrait of Rex (1923).
In 1926, he studied at the Jardin des Plantes with young artists who followed the path and experimentation of Pompon. They met and in 1931 formed the Group of Twelve, including Artus, Guyot, Hernandez, Jouve … breaking with the academic approach of artists like Gardet.
From 1927, the contours of his art were already clearly defined. That year, he presented at the first animal exhibition of the Galerie Brandt a Group of ducks, very expressive. Many of his models of antelopes, elephants, birds, aquatic animals, beasts are born over a very short period from 1927 to 1933, so much so that the magazine Art & Decoration devoted a long personal article to him in January 1933, under the title, «Petersen’s Animals».

The death of Pompon in 1933, as well as the economic difficulties of the following years, caused Petersen a marked slowdown in the frequency of the appearance of new models. The Young Dromedary, the Young Zebra, the Lama are exceptional in 1937. The revival is really done in the middle of the 50s and early 60s with original bull subjects (Fighting Bull, Bull Head, Golden Calf Head), a revisit of some animals treated in previous years, and a desire expressed more monumentality by proposing enlargements (Grue cendrée, 1930, renamed in Demoiselle de Numidie, 1952-1956). In this perspective, appear also the first official commissions, like on July 21, 1954, for a Great Deer currently in Louviers. 
Armand Petersen died in September 1969 without descendance.