Youla Chapoval

Born in 1919 in Kiev (Ukraine), Youla Chapoval was an artist of the Second School of Paris, who died in 1951. He moved to Paris in 1938, where he met many artists including Picasso, Jean Cocteau and Jean Degottex. He worked at La Grande Chaumière in the Montparnasse district, painting in a figurative style. In 1942, because of his Jewishness, Youla Chapoval fled to Marseille, where he took a few courses at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts. After a brief stay in Toulouse, he returned to Paris in 1944, where his work enjoyed great success. His paintings were purchased by public figures such as Georges Pompidou and Albert Camus, until he met Henri Benezit, a dealer who bought some twenty paintings from him in 1946. The following year, he won the 2nd Carrefour de la Jeune Peinture prize and was honored by the Jeanne Bucher gallery. From then on, his paintings became completely abstract, and in 1949 he was awarded the Prix Kandinsky by the Denise René gallery, which devoted an exhibition to him in 1950.