Guy Pène du Bois painted La Rue de la Santé during his lengthy stay in France from 1924 to 1929. As the title indicates, the scene is set on La Rue de la Santé in the 14th arrondissement on the Left Bank of the Seine in Montparnasse. The tall wall in the background belongs to La Santé prison, one of the most notorious jails in France, where public executions by the guillotine were held until 1939. Although early critics were reluctant to say so overtly, the subject is most likely a prostitute negotiating with a potential client. The heavily made-up, robust woman stands at a street corner in the center of the composition facing the viewer and speaks to a man who stands to her left. The impression that they are negotiating an illicit transaction is enhanced by the gloomy, nocturnal ambience, and by the fact that they stand in the shadowy part of the corner where the light cast by the two street lamps at the upper left does not reach.

Pène du Bois had already represented similar scenes set in New York’s Tenderloin red-light district. A confirmed Francophile, he rejected conventional American morality and wrote of his admiration for the urbane Frenchman, who “meets life on its own terms” and for whom “morality is a matter of efficiency.” In La Rue de la Santé Pène du Bois dealt with a theme that had attracted the attention of Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec (French, 1864 - 1901), Edgar Degas (French, 1834 - 1917), and many other European predecessors. It is also contemporary with the famous photographs of Eugène Atget (French, 1857 - 1927) and anticipates works by Brassaï (French, born Transylvania, 1899 - 1984)