Polia Chentoff was born in Vitebsk, Russian Empire (now Belarus) into a Jewish family, probably in 1890, first studying art with Yehuda Moiseevich Pen before attending the Royal Academy of Arts in Brussels and working in Munich and Paris. At the outbreak of the First World War she settled in Moscow, where she became a member of the Jewish Society for the Promotion of the Arts and joined the Circle of Jewish National Aesthetics (Shomir). In 1920 Chentoff moved to Berlin, in 1923 to Paris, and from 1930 she lived in London, where she secretly married artist Edmond Kapp in 1932, exhibiting successfully until her sudden death in 1933.
Painter and sculptor Polia Chentoff was born Polina Arkadievna Khentova into a Jewish family in Vitebsk, Russian Empire (now Belarus), probably in 1890. In the obituary written at her death, the Russian painter Sergey Sharshun stated her birth date as 1896, but,, to date, no official records have confirmed this. Chentoff studied at the Vitebsk gymnasium and received her first art lessons in the studio of Yehuda Moiseevich Pen, who had been the first teacher of Marc Chagall and an outstanding figure within the renaissance of Russian and Belarusian art in the early 20th century.
Chentoff briefly moved with her family to Moscow and eventually settled in Brussels, Belgium, where she entered the Royal Academy of Arts, graduating with distinction. She then worked in Munich and Paris. At the outbreak of the First World War, she returned to Russia, living in the outskirts of Moscow. She became a member of the Jewish Society for the Promotion of the Arts, founded in Petrograd (now St. Petersburg) in 1915, with a branch in Moscow the following year. The Society organised exhibitions and competitions, published art-related texts and supported the creation of art schools. Chentoff participated in its exhibitions held in Moscow in 1917 and 1918. She also showed her paintings in the exhibitions of the modernist art movements Mir Iskusstvo (The World of Art) in 1917 and Moskovskoe Tovarishestvo Khudozhnikov (Moscow Association of Artists) in 1917 and 1918. She later took an active part in the Circle of Jewish National Aesthetics Shomir. Founded in 1916, and counting among its members, the art critic and poet Abram Efros, and pioneering avant-garde artist El Lissitzky, its aim was the creation of a new form of contemporary art based on the legacy of a Jewish artistic tradition. Chentoff began a relationship with El Lissitzky and in summer 1918 the couple travelled to Kiev, where they worked in the art session of the Kultur-Lige (Culture League), an organisation founded in 1918 to promote Yiddish secular democratic values. In 1919 Chentoff returned to Vitebsk, where the following year, at the suggestion of Mark Chagall, El Lissitszky was appointed head of the Architecture Department at the Vitebsk Art School.
In 1920 Chentoff immigrated to Berlin, joined by El Lissitzky in 1921. During this time, she gave art classes, produced illustrations for books and painted portraits on commission. In 1923 she relocated to Paris, where in order to make a living, she crafted dolls and acted as an extra in movies. In 1926 and 1927 she showed her work at the Salon d'Automne, of which she became a member. Here she became acquainted with a number of British collectors, who helped her exhibit her works in London and in Paris, as well as securing commissions for book illustrations, including for the collectors' edition of A Sentimental Journey Through France and Italy published by Sun Press/Editions Narcisse in 1929. In 1930, with the support of Jewish artist Edmond Kapp, whom she would marry secretly in 1932 at Hampstead Registry Office, Chentoff settled in London. Soon after her arrival in 1930, she exhibited her paintings at the Brandon Davies Gallery, among them Mother, nursing her infant in a grey landscape; Coiffure, a study in grey and gold; and the head Widow. The Times published a detailed review of the show, praising the pictorial conception and execution of her works, and noting that Chentoff ‘excited interest at once by her double sensibility, human and artistic’. Among others, the art critic singled out ‘the brilliant study of Currants’ and the painting Morning Toilet, depicting a nude girl washing her hands, describing it as ‘a very charming picture, physical type, design and quality of execution all contributing to the same effect of half-awakened womanhood’. He concluded: ‘A sensitive temperament, wistful rather than melancholy, is reflected in all Miss Chentoff’s work […] (The Times 1930, p. 8). In 1931 Chentoff took part in the Goupil Gallery Salon, contributing among others ‘a well-composed small bas relief’ (Konody 1931, p. 12), and Portrait of a Woman revealing ‘a rare delicacy of perception and exquisite quality of paint (Bury 1931, p. 536).
Polia Chentoff died of a brain tumour in the National Hospital on Queen Square, London, England in 1933. Although her work is not currently represented in any UK public collections, the Victoria & Albert Museum (V&A), London holds an icon of St. Nicholas which once belonged to Chentoff and which was purchased from Kapp in 1943. In archive papers, Kapp described the icon as the ‘great treasure’ of his late wife. In 1975 a ‘marvellous painting’ by Chentoff entitled On the Embankment was featured in the exhibition Hampstead in the Thirties held at the Camden Arts Centre (Anthony 1975, p. 72). In 1986 her bas reliefs were included in the Fine Art Society Exhibition Sculpture Between the Wars.
Consult items in the Ben Uri archive related to [Polia Chentoff]
Publications related to [Polia Chentoff] in the Ben Uri Library