He taught himself oil painting more or less independently in the studios of artist friends and in courses at the Académie Suisse. In the early 1880s, he took the plunge into freelance artistry and caught a good moment for a new start. Georges Seurat had just invented Pointillism, an exciting, neo-Impressionist style that caused a sensation and inspired him, and with the Salon des Indépendants, founded in 1884, even he, an outsider, had opportunities to exhibit his work without strict regulations. Luce joined Seurat’s circle. His pointillist works, painted between 1885 and 1900 with a significantly lighter palette, brought him national and international recognition during his lifetime. To this day, they fetch six- to seven-figure prices on the art market. The current auction record stands at €3.5 million (2022, Sotheby’s, New York).

Despite his success, Luce never forgot his origins. He was a staunch anarchist and politically active, which even led to a brief imprisonment in 1894. His oeuvre contains an above-average number of images of workers and anti-war scenes. Although train stations and railway bridges as expressions of modern life can also be found in the works of the great Impressionists, no one painted the everyday life of port and factory workers, road builders, or carters as knowledgeably as Luce. His “Street Scene at Dusk” shows a typical Impressionist subject, but instead of elegant strollers and buildings, a dark block of carters, horses, and carts in backlighting occupies the center of the picture, albeit against the backdrop of the brightly colored, beautiful colors of the evening light.

The Seine at Rolleboise is painted in similarly magnificent, flowing, powerful colors. At first glance, it appears to be a peaceful evening and autumn scene, were it not for the smoking steamboat, which chugs its way back into the center of the picture, bringing the world of work back into focus. In addition to the landscape of the Ile de France, one of Luce’s favorite themes was the beauty of everyday life, including everyday working life, and steamboats fascinated him. Today, we find such ships nostalgic and admire them at steamboat parades in Dresden or Hamburg. At the time, they were state-of-the-art technology. This, combined with the landscape near the village of Rolleboise, where he spent the last years of his life with his wife Ambrosine Bouin (the two did not marry until 1940) and where he is also buried, makes for a charming scene.

Around 1900, after the Durand-Ruel Gallery had organized a solo exhibition for him in the fall of 1899 that was a hit with both the public and critics, Luce turned his back on Pointillism and went back to painting in an Impressionist style. Being represented by the first and most important gallery owner of the Impressionists was an honor and a huge boost to his career. Luce abandoned the dots. His brushstrokes became longer, softer, and more virtuosic, while maintaining the luminosity and harmony of the colors.

“Reclining Man” is a preparatory study for the oil paintings that Luce painted between 1901 and 1905 in memory of the Paris Commune uprising, which was bloodily suppressed in 1871. The fallen man still holds his fist clenched. The artist had a difficult time with his political paintings in the circle of the Impressionists and their collectors. Nevertheless, he painted them out of political conviction. This brings us back to the beginning of the text and to Aristide Delannoy, who was his friend and political ally. Delannoy died of tuberculosis in 1911 at the age of 37, after being sentenced to three years in prison for a political caricature for Les Hommes du Jour. Luce fought against such injustices throughout his life. For how easily he could have suffered a similar fate when he was imprisoned in 1894. He was lucky. In 1909, when Delannoy painted his portrait, he was elected vice president of the Société des Artistes Indépendants and subsequently enjoyed a busy but fulfilling and successful life as a painter. He lived to the age of 83.