Polia Chentoff

Polia Chentoff or Polina Chentova (1896–1933) was a Russian artist, known for her paintings, sculptures and book illustrations, who spent a large part of her career in Paris and London.

Biography Polia Chentoff was born in 1896 in Vitebsk in the Russian Empire in the family of Jewish shopkeeper Abram Chentoff, and, after first moving to Moscow, studied art at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts in Brussels. She subsequently moved to Paris where she exhibited works at the Paris Salon and illustrated a number of children's books for a Berlin publisher. After returning to Moscow for some years, Chentoff moved to London in the late 1920s where she continued to exhibit her paintings and sculptures.

The artist El Lissitzky fell in love with Chentoff in the early 1920s, pursued her to Berlin, and apparently even tried to commit suicide in connection with the unrequited love.