Jules Adler (1865-1952) - In The Faubourg Saint Denis (preparatory Study), 1895

Jules Adler (1865-1952)
Au Faubourg Saint Denis - (Preparatory study), 1895
Oil on panel
33 x 24 cm
50 x 42 cm
Dedicated, signed and dated lower left "Bien affectionately, JULES ADLER 1895"

Our painting is probably a preparatory study for one of his masterpieces "Au Faubourg Saint Denis, Le Matin" from 1895 exhibited in 2020 at the Museum of Art and History of Judaism as part of the major retrospective dedicated to Jules Adler

Third son of a cloth merchant from Luxeuil-les-Bains, Jules Adler left Franche-Comtéen in 1882. He then moved to Paris with his family. He first studied at the School of Decorative Arts, where he studied with William Bouguereau, Tony Robert-Fleury and finally at the Beaux-Arts with Pascal Dagnan-Bouveret. At the same time, from 1883, he took courses at the Académie Julian. After a first failure, he succeeded in entering the Ecole des Beaux-Arts in Paris in 1884. Massier at the Académie Julian, he created the academy's masked ball which would later become the Bal des Quat'z'Arts. In 1888, he made his debut at the Salon with his painting Misère. Adler is several times medalist at the Salon and participates in numerous exhibitions. His favorite theme is the working world, which earned him the nickname "the painter of the humble". He obtains a gold medal with his painting Popular Joys; one of his most famous paintings is La Grève-Le Creusot, exhibited at the Salon of 1900, which was a great success. On August 7, 1899, the second trial of Captain Dreyfus began in Rennes. Adler took sides in the Affair and his house became a center for Dreyfusards. In 1903, he was a founding member of the Salon d'Automne at the Petit Palais. From 1914 to 1918, he set up a canteen to help artists on Place Pigalle, which served several thousand meals and provided artists with clothing. In 1914, the painter was in charge of an artistic mission in Verdun (Meuse) and brought back drawings, sketches and photographs. He was appointed professor at the Beaux-Arts in Paris in 1928, where he had his nephew, Jean Adler, as a pupil. Attached to his Franche-Comté roots, he participated in local exhibitions, as in 1924 in Belfort (Territoire de Belfort), alongside Franche-Comté, Lorraine and Alsatian painters such as Georges Fréset, Joseph-Paul Alizard, Jules-René Hervé and Jules-Alexis Muenier, or also in Langres (Haute-Marne) alongside Fréset, Hervé, and René-Xavier Prinet. During the Second World War, he was arrested in March 1944 on the denunciation of a pharmacist for having walked in the Square des Batignolles then forbidden to Jews and interned in the Picpus hospice, an annex to the Drancy camp. He escapes deportation. He died in 1952 in relative poverty at the retirement home for artists in Nogent-sur-Marne.