Jacques Chapiro (1897-1972), Portrait of a Woman

Title: Portrait of a Woman
Author: Jacques Chapiro
Artist from the circle of Ecole de Paris
Year: 1939
Technique: Charcoal drawing on paper
Framed work
Dimensions: 65 x 51 cm
Signature: handwritten l.d.: Jacques Chapiro, Paris 1939

Jacques (Yakov) Chapiro was born in 1897 in Dyneburg, Latvia, and died in 1972 in Paris. He was the son of a Jewish woodcarver-sculptor, Abraham Chapiro. At the age of ten, he began studying painting. In 1915 he went to Kharkiv to study, where he studied at the Academy of Fine Arts there. From 1918 he continued his education in Kyiv, and from 1921 he studied in St. Petersburg, showing his work, for example, in Dobrychin's salon and creating decorations in a theater for children. Later he settled for a while in Moscow. In 1925, he finally left Russia and moved to Paris. There he settled in La Ruche, which was a kind of house or cheap artist's hostel in the Montparnasse district of Paris. The artist became strongly associated with the art community and began his serious exhibition career, from 1926 he showed his works at the Salon des Independents and the Salon des Tuileries, among others. The painter was friends with Marc Chagall and Raymond Cogniat, among others. In France, he continued his activity in stage design, creating decorations for the ballet led by Sergei Diaghilev. There were also two solo exhibitions of the artist in Paris, the first at the Kleinman Gallery (1930) and the second at the Bonaparte Gallery (1936).

In 1939 Jacques Chapiro, fearing persecution, left Paris and spent several years in hiding, living in small French and Italian towns. In 1945, the artist returned to the French capital and opened his own studio there, and continued his exhibition activities. After the war, the painter began to write down his memories related to the La Ruche community. The book was published in 1960.

Jacques Chapiro is counted among the representatives of the École de Paris. The artist's works are extremely diverse, and he often experimented with the style of his works. His early paintings refer to the trend of Impressionism and Fauvism, the influence of Pierre Bonnard is visible in them, while other works seem to be close to the style of Cubism. Later in his career, the artist moved rather closer to Expressionism, being inspired by the art of Chaim Soutine. Jacques Chapiro mostly painted portraits, flowers, still lifes, landscapes and genre scenes.
The artist was involved in many artistic fields. During the October Revolution he made propaganda posters, later, as mentioned, he made theater decorations, and also practiced monumental painting (he toiled in the fresco technique).