La Ghriba Djerba, Tunisia

Born in Monastir, Tunisia, Jules Lellouche was a primarily self-taught painter. He demonstrated early talent and briefly studied painting at the Institut Supérieur des Beaux Arts in Tunis. In the early 1920s, Lellouche began to show his work, both portrait and landscape paintings, at the Tunisian Salon. In 1936, he helped form the Groupe de Quatre, which exhibited together at the Galerie Art Nouveau in Tunis. While a student in Tunis, he was awarded a French government scholarship to study in Paris. He would continue to travel to Paris until 1939. There, he was influenced by impressionist and postimpressionist painting, absorbing the artists’ exploration of luminosity and application of brilliant colors and eventually using these works to portray the light of Tunis and the colors of the Mediterranean. In 1955, Lellouche settled permanently in Paris.