Boudin was a son of a sailor. He settled in Le Havre in 1835, where he was an apprentice to a printer. In 1838, he opened an art framer's shop, in which he exhibited paintings by Couture, Millet, Troyon and others. Soon he gave up the shop, to dedicate himself wholeheartedly to painting. After traveling to Paris in 1847 he visited northern France and Flanders in 1848. He exhibited two pictures at the Societe des Amis des Arts du Havre in 1850, after which the town gave him a scholarship to study at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts in Paris. He finished the study in 1853 and returned to Honfleur taking the route along the coast in 1855. Throughout his life he remained faithful to the Corot tradition and plein-air painting, especially the play of light on water and atmospheric cloud studies. He once declared that three brushstrokes done outdoors to be of greater value than days spent working in the studio. Grains of sand from the beaches where Boudin painted still adhere to some of his pictures. His pastels exhibited at the Salon in 1859 were greatly admired by Baudelaire. In 1858, he met Monet and encouraged an equal enthusiasm for plein-air painting. Later, Monet was to say: "If I became a painter it was thanks to Boudin".

Beginning in 1862 he began spending his holidays at Trouville, where the beach life provided many models. In 1868, he was commissioned to execute a decorative painting for the Chateau de Bourdainville. During his stay in Brussels in 1870/71, new motifs - market scenes - led to a more generous brushwork. He met Durand-Ruel there. He had considerable success at the Salon after his paintings were showed in the 1st Impressionist Exhibition in 1874. He received the gold metal at the General Exhibition in 1889. Afterwards, based at his home in Deauville, he made various trips to Venice, Cote d'Azur and elsewhere, which enriched his use of colour. His pictures of the sea made him one of the forerunners of the Impressionists. Though Boudin believed sincerity was achieved by painting directly from nature, he still made adjustments to his paintings in the studio. "An impression is gained in an instant," he advised a student, "but it then has to be condensed following the rules of art or rather your own feeling and that is the most difficult thing - to finish a painting without spoiling anything."