Zavaro was born in Istanbul, Turkey in 1925 of Spanish parents. The death of his father in 1927 prompted the family to move to France. He had but one central idea as a child: to become an artist. Well aware of the material as well as emotional difficulties which are the common lot of an artist, he was tempted to become a professor of drawing and early studied drawing in the public schools of Paris.

In 1939, Zavaro left with his family to move to Annecy and started to study sculpture with one of his friends who was a sculptor himself and who instilled in him a basic mastery of the technique. His enthusiasm for sculpture lasted until he realized that his true vocation was to experiment with color and to express himself through pictoria...