Elie Pavil came to France in 1892 from his family home in the Black Sea port of Odessa, Ukraine. With some artistic works under his belt, he acquired a position to study at the Julian Academy under William Bouguereau, a renown figurative painter, and he blended into his personal style the academic mastery he observed firsthand of Renoir, Monet and Sisley. Afterward he chose to settle in Morocco on the North African coast, where he painted a vast number of landscapes and scenes of everyday life on both sides of the Mediterranean Sea, which he exhibited in France on a regular basis. He was active in the Show of French Artists from 1905 on, and exhibited in the Salon of Independents and Autumn Shows as well.