Jules Adler 1865-1952

Jules Adler, the third son of a textile merchant from Luxeuil-les-Bains, left the Franche-Comté region in 1882 and settled in Paris with his family. He initially studied at the École des Arts Décoratifs, where he was taught by William Bouguereau and Tony Robert-Fleury, before continuing his training at the École des Beaux-Arts under Pascal Dagnan-Bouveret. At the same time, from 1883 onward, he took classes at the Académie Julian. After an initial rejection, he was admitted to the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris in 1884.

While serving as massier (student representative) at the Académie Julian, Adler founded the academy’s masked ball, which later became the famous Bal des Quat’z’Arts. In 1888, he made his debut at the Salon with the painting Misère. He went on to receive several medals at the Salon and took part in numerous exhibitions. His preferred subject was the working class, earning him the nickname “the painter of the humble.” He was awarded a gold medal for Joies populaires, and one of his most celebrated works, La Grève - Le Creusot, exhibited at the 1900 Salon, was met with great success.

On August 7, 1899, during the second trial of Captain Dreyfus in Rennes, Adler publicly took a stand in the Dreyfus Affair, and his home became a meeting place for Dreyfus supporters. In 1903, he was a founding member of the Salon d’Automne at the Petit Palais.

Between 1914 and 1918, Adler established a canteen for artists on Place Pigalle, which served thousands of meals and distributed clothing to artists in need. In 1914, he was appointed artistic envoy to Verdun (Meuse), returning with drawings, sketches, and photographs. In 1928, he was named professor at the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris, where one of his students was his nephew, Jean Adler.

Deeply attached to his roots in Franche-Comté, Adler continued to participate in regional exhibitions, notably in 1924 in Belfort alongside artists from Franche-Comté, Lorraine, and Alsace such as Georges Fréset, Joseph-Paul Alizard, Jules-René Hervé, and Jules-Alexis Muenier. He also exhibited in Langres (Haute-Marne) with Fréset, Hervé, and René-Xavier Prinet.

During World War II, Adler was arrested in March 1944 after being reported by a pharmacist for walking in the Batignolles gardens, which were then off-limits to Jews. He was interned at the Picpus hospice, an annex of the Drancy camp, but narrowly escaped deportation.

He died in 1952 in relative poverty at the artists’ retirement home in Nogent-sur-Marne.