Jean Tabaud
Jean Tabaud (5 July 1914 – 3 December 1996) was a French portrait painter and war artist. Early life He was born Jean Gilbert Tabaud on July 5, 1914, in the small town of Saujon, France, on the Southwest Atlantic coast, north of Bordeaux. He was the son of Lucien Tabaud and Ernestine Tabaud Hillairet. His father was a butcher by profession, who served in World War I, where he was wounded and gassed during the conflict. World War II A first career in classical dance with the Ballets Russes, dancing in Paris, Berlin, Geneva, Belgium, Switzerland, Rio de Janeiro, Tangier, Casablanca, and Argentina was interrupted by a spine injury which forced him to give up dancing altogether. He returned to France to seek treatment for his back but instead met up with the outbreak of World War II. He was immediately drafted into the French Army, witnessed the fall of France to Germany, and was taken prisoner in 1941. Painter beginnings His second career as an artist started while he was a prisoner during World War II. While there, he passed the time sketching portraits of his fellow prisoners, and was shortly asked to do the same by guards,