Dimensions: 48 x 63 cm, with frame 64 x 80 cm
 
 

Painter, illustrator and decorator, Lucien Eller was the painter of nightlife, bars, and jazz clubs. He depicts the atmosphere of the night in an expressive and graphic style, between illustration and painting, in the tradition of painters Van Dongen and Rouault.  

Laureate of the Société des Beaux-arts de Marseille, he moved to Paris after the First World War. In the capital, he exhibited at the Devambez gallery and at the Salons des Indépendants and the Salon des Humoristes.  

Paris makes the painter the witness of his twirling nights of the Roaring Twenties. He paints the small world of the city seated in cafes, whose vain conversations evaporate in the clouds of cigarettes and the haze of their glass of wine. The women and the man, elegantly dressed, pass the time. Note the attention to colors and the lively gesture of the designer, who hatches certain surfaces to indicate the shadow and condenses the simplicity of the faces into a few strokes. 

Died prematurely, his work remains in the shadows for twenty years. In 1956, a sale was organized in Nice; it brings together more than 70 of his works and brings him back to light with an audience of knowledgeable dealers and collectors.