Beautiful Painting, oil on panel from the 1950s Signed on the right, the panel seems to have been cut on the left. Very beautiful painting, ready to be framed. Born to non-French speaking parents and foreign to Western culture, he grew up in the vibrant Jewish quarter of Monastir. “How can one not be a painter when born in such a city?” he loved to say about his hometown. After studying at the Higher Institute of Fine Arts in Tunis, where his fascination with nature made him a promising portraitist and landscape painter, he won a scholarship for a stay in Paris to complete his artistic training. He also fell in love with Venice to the extent that Fernand Rouillon called him “Lellouche the Venetian born in Monastir.” For Juliette Darle, “one cannot be surprised that Venice captivated him, nor Paris with its quays and bridges [...] But it is the light of Tunis above all that passionate this modern impressionist.” His deeply Mediterranean soul infuses his work with life and light: Pierre Boucherle said of him in 1944: “Whether he paints the light of the south playing on the colorful walls of ill-placed houses, or on the waters of the port, whether he paints a woman's body in the cold gloom of a workshop, camels in a sun-drenched atmosphere, or prostitutes crushed by a heavy fate, life flows on his canvas, tender, ardent, or miserable, always ennobled by the unique magic of line and tone.” His paintings travel from salons to exhibitions in the great cities of the Mediterranean basin. In 1948, Jean Bouret remarked on his trajectory: “Lellouche is the first painter of the Regency in the tradition of Marquet. He renews the range of brilliant colors that make Tunis an admirable Mediterranean port of light.” He experienced both satisfaction and setbacks in his life but left behind a poignant and very sensitive body of work. At his death, George Besson praised “his beautiful and sensitive drawing and his very accurate and refined sense of values.” Since 1990, paintings by Jules Lellouche have been regularly presented by the Gérard Rambaud Gallery in Paris. Type: Oil Style: 1940-1960 Genre: Expressionism Features: Signed, On panel Theme: Figure