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Chia Yu Chian was privately tutored by Chen Wen Hsi (1906-1992) and Cheong Soo Pieng (1917-83) but he never studied at the Nanyang Academy of Fine Art, Singapore. He was the first in the Straits Settlement to get a French Government scholarship to study at Ecole Nationale des Beaux Arts in Paris, graduating in 1962.

He painted many scenes of Montmarte where he was billeted around the 18 Arrondisement on the Parisian Right Bank at the Rue de la Charbonniere, during his studies in Paris. It is a bohemian artist’s colony with heritage buildings of more than two centuries old. This work on a deserted alleyway in a slope behind the Sacre Coeur Basilica shows a couple in white and black overcoats suggesting a cold day but with the warmth of the light emanating from the makeshift tumbled-down workshop shed on the left.

With the more fluid Fauvist brushstrokes of his Paris days, this painting also has an elegiac and romantic feel.