François Gall

François Gall was born "Ferenc Erdelyi ...

François Gall was born "Ferenc Erdelyi Gall" in 1912 in Kolozsvár, Hungary (now Cluj Napoca). In 1936, at age 24 years, he moved to Paris. Early in 1939, Gall returned to Kolosvàr to attend the bedside of his dying father. Once there, he could not return to France as the declaration of war was imminent. Gall's war time years were finished in Wels, Austria where he was a medic. He attended to Jewish people. After Austria's liberation from German occupation, Gall returned to his attic at 16 Dauphine Street, Paris and resumed his career as an artist.

In 1949, Gall became a naturalized French citizen. Gall married Eugenia Chassaing, a young woman from the province of Quercy. They had three children: Lize-Marie (1947), Jean-François (1948), and Elizabeth-Anne (1956). In 1954, the family moved to 8 Villa Brune in the 14th arrondissement of Paris. It was purchased from the widow of Jules-Émile Zingg. Eugenia and the children became subjects and models for Gall's paintings. Eugenia died in a motor vehicle accident in 1980.

In 1961, while hanging paintings for an exhibition for the Salon des Independents in the Grand Palais, Gall fell several metres and could not work for over a year. In 1987, at the "House of Artists" in Berryer street, Paris, Gall succumbed to his third heart attack.