Chapiro Jacques

Biography of Jacques Chapiro

Jacques Chapiro, born June 19, 1897 in Dunebourg (Dvinsk) in Russia, today Daugavpils in Latvia, and died in Paris 13th on December 11, 1972, is a French painter of Russian origin, associated with the School of Paris.

The son of a woodcarver, Chapiro began his artistic education at the age of three. He continued his studies at the Kharkov School of Fine Arts in 1915, then at the Kiev School of Fine Arts in 1918. In 1921, he joined the Petrograd School of Fine Arts, where he was employed as an assistant set designer by Meyerhold, a director of the Constructivist theater. He later worked with Stanislavsky and Vakhtangov in the theater world.

In 1925, Chapiro left Russia for Paris and settled in the Cité de la Ruche, where he lived for five years and rubbed shoulders with Chaïm Soutine. In the 1930s, he produced several portraits whose expressiveness and iconography, notably the twisting of the faces and the use of bright colours, anticipate the works of Francis Bacon. Some art historians have also noted similarities with the works of Vincent Van Gogh and Soutine.

In 1939, Jacques Chapiro took refuge in Carpentras, then in Serres in the Hautes-Alpes. After the war, he visited Italy before returning permanently to Paris. He then began writing an anecdotal account of the daily life of the artists of La Ruche. In 1967, opposed to the project to demolish La Ruche, he founded a preservation committee alongside Marc Chagall, thus obtaining the preservation of this Parisian artistic mecca.