Gabriel Spatartist • painterChişināu (Moldavië) 1890-1967 New York

Moldovan-born Gabriel (or Gabrille) Spat left his homeland at an early age to study at the art academies in Geneva and Paris. From 1919 to 1942 he lived in France, mainly in Paris, where he visited the studios of Modigliani and Chaïm Soutine and the studio complex La Ruche. During this time he mainly worked as a sculptor; he often made portraits of famous actors. He also made anti-German drawings, which were destroyed in World War II. In 1942 Spat fled to the US, where he lived and worked for a long time in New York. Spat is mainly known as a painter of impressionistic, fashionable scenes: elegantly dressed people, strolling in the Bois de Boulogne, along the Parisian boulevards or at the horse races in Auteuil (Paris). He also painted ballerinas, animals, portraits, landscapes and genre and sports scenes.