In a bar (1934)

At the age of 12, he attends the famous painting school in Nagybánya, where he studies painting with János Thorma and János Krizsán. Between 1926 and 1929 he continued his studies at the School of Applied Arts in Budapest. In 1933 he participated in a group exhibition organized by the National Association of Hungarian Israelite University and College Students. In the same year he went to Nagybánya again. His first solo exhibition was in his hometown, Satu Mare in 1934. In 1935 he was drafted into the Romanian Air Force, but he did not stop painting. In 1936, he had solo exhibitions in Oradea and Cluj-Napoca, in 1938 in Nagykároly, and in 1940 and 1941 in Bucharest. In 1944 he was deported to Auschwitz. His extraordinary story became known in the prestigious Israeli newspaper Yediot Ahronot (Latest News) on 25 November 1965. The article was entitled 'The man who escaped death by painting. Painter Eliyahu Adler, former Auschwitz prisoner, is on his way to Germany to find the Nazi officer who saved his life." On a Nazi whim, he was allowed to paint in the camp; Adler illustrated a storybook he had written for his daughter with drawings, and in return he was singled out from the prisoners. In 1949 he settled in Israel. 

The focus of Adler's painting is to show the human soul. A particular work is the painting In the Bar (elsewhere: Whisperers, 1934), which was presumably exhibited at Adler's first solo exhibition. The brushwork, the way he juxtaposes the patches of colour, bears witness to the influence of his masters in Nagybánya, Thorma and Krizsán. However, his subject matter is much more modern than theirs. The central figure in the painting is the bar singer, who seems to be leaning on the piano, her bent body positioned on the diagonal of the painting. It is not clear whether the three figures in the background are real persons or characters from the singer's sad chanson, and appear only figuratively as old loves.