Pseudonym: Jacques Shapiro. Artist (1897-1972). Yakov Shapiro was born on June 13, 1897, in Daugavpils to a woodcarver, Avraham Shapiro. He received a traditional Jewish religious education and began studying the basics of art at the age of 10. In 1915, Yakov entered the Kharkiv Art School in Ukraine, and in 1918, he continued his studies in Kyiv. In 1919, he headed a drawing school in Yekaterinoslav (now Dnipro). In 1920, he moved to Petrograd, where he combined his studies with directing a children's art school and working as a decorator and theater artist at a theater under V. Meyerhold. In 1921, he moved to Moscow and continued to work as a theater artist with directors V. Meyerhold and E. Vakhtangov. Yakov Shapiro became well-known and sought after in theater circles; his contemporaries remember him as a very active and sociable person who easily found common ground with people in the arts.

At the peak of his career, Yakov Shapiro decided to radically change his life and moved to France in 1925. Spending his modest savings, he faced financial difficulties, but thanks to acquaintances with Russian and Jewish artists living in exile, he managed to avoid starvation. On their advice, he settled in the Paris artist colony "La Ruche," built in 1902 by sculptor Alfred Boucher from the remnants of the World Exhibition structures. Here, rooms were rented at a symbolic price to poor foreign artists. In the 1920s and 30s, this community housed famous artists such as M. Modigliani, P. Picasso, M. Chagall, Ch. Soutine, and F. Léger, who made up the so-called Paris School. Yakov Shapiro lived in this community for five years (1925-1930) and created his best works, changing his name to Jacques Shapiro. His works reflected the diversity of styles of the time, including Cubism, Fauvism, Impressionism, and Expressionism. Since 1925, his works were exhibited in prestigious galleries and salons in Paris, such as the Bonaparte Gallery, the Autumn Salon, the Tuileries Salon, and the Salon of Independents. He held solo exhibitions in Paris in 1930 and 1936. He met Sergei Diaghilev and created decorations for the "Russian Ballet of Diaghilev." Jacques Shapiro also participated in the activities of the association of Jewish artists established in Paris in 1937 and created a series of paintings on Jewish themes, which were highly praised by critics. In the 1930s, due to anti-Semitic sentiments and the economic problems of the Great Depression, he faced difficulties. With the onset of World War II, Jacques Shapiro, being Jewish, was forced to leave Paris and hide in small towns in France and the Alps of Italy.

After the war, he returned to Paris and opened his art studio. During this time, Jacques Shapiro created lithographs for the poems of D. Knut and wrote a memoir about the artist colony "La Ruche," full of anecdotes and interesting details. The book, published in 1960, attracted the attention of critics and readers. When it was decided in the 1960s to demolish the building of "La Ruche," Jacques Shapiro, along with like-minded individuals, created a committee that succeeded in preserving this unique object and including it in the list of historical monuments.

In the post-war years, Jacques Shapiro held solo exhibitions in Paris (1946-1949) and London (1950). His works were exhibited at many Russian art exhibitions.

As an artist, he loved to experiment and worked in various genres, creating portraits, self-portraits, interiors, landscapes, and still lifes. His paintings are so diverse that they are hard to categorize into any specific style. Jacques Shapiro managed to create a unique artistic world with unusual forms and bright colors. His works are still in demand in galleries and at auctions. Jacques Shapiro's works are in the Museum of Modern Art in Paris, the Art Institute of Chicago, the A. S. Pushkin State Museum of Fine Arts in Moscow, and in private collections.

The artist passed away in Paris in 1972 at the age of 75.