Les Las (The Weary)

Born in Luxeuil-les-Bains to an Alsatian Jewish family, Jules Adler attended the Parisian Académie Julian and then the École des Beaux-Arts. A naturalist and regional painter who favored humble, compassionate portraits of daily life, Adler created intimate scenes depicting social issues such as poverty, environmental pollution, and human transience, early on favoring working-class struggles. During World War I he painted numerous scenes of people in the countryside. Later, Adler exhibited with a handful of Jewish artists in Palestine and Berlin, one of his few displays of outward attachment to Jewishness.