She admittedly welcomed visitors to the exhibition with politeness and attention, but always with the firm intention of not letting herself be impressed by anyone. Thus I had a few giggles on several occasions when, scandalized by certain visitors’ casualness and lack of education, she went with a step as decided as martial to telling them that this was not a way to behave, demanding that they respect the place, the exhibited works -and mainly the artist.

Because indeed, Yvette Chapochnik was an Old School lady, generous and simple, who asserted her modest origins while intending to show that she knew how to behave. Something that no one ever doubted, any more than of the big heart she had -which she truly had on her sleeve-, and of her unconditional fidelity in friendship as well.
She left Paris shortly before my October 2015 last exhibition at the Espace Niemeyer, and it was the only event that we did not share together. The obligations related to her family life had made her abandon her small apartment in the 12th arrondissement of Paris, where she had welcomed me and other friends many times for gargantuan dinners that she spent the whole week preparing (with her usual generosity). Having then left Paris for the provinces, our contacts from then on became less frequent, as it often happens in such contexts ; Yvette had moved on with her life, and I never saw her again. She left this world for good at the beginning of 2021. I never forgot her ; and I never will.

I also remember Maurice Rivière, who left this world as well. A member of this team under Gérard Fournier’s leadership, he took care of everything that went wrong, from the half-dead bulb that flickered in the spots lighting the hung works, to everything that an exhibition space of this size -and the building that housed it-, could require of attention, of occasional repairs and daily interventions. For the artists who had an exhibition there, Maurice was the "Mister Magic Bullet-Solutions", who saved the day.