1950 - 1953, Grataloup will call these years "dark years".

For lack of money and a spirit of revolt against his environment, his father decides again to exchange the rent of the apartment he occupies boulevard des Brotteaux for a small apartment at 4, rue Étienne Richerand, in the third arrondissement of Lyon, this to the great despair of his mother and of John’s family.

This period was extremely difficult for the young Grataloup. The apartment adjoins a foundry. Cramped and noisy because of this neighborhood that prevents its occupants from sleeping at night, it is rather eccentric, in a working-class neighborhood. For the young man, between his father and his mother, life is difficult. The couple does not get along very well and is often caught at the time of violent quarrels.

On October 5, 1950, his beloved grandmother died of cancer, plunging the young man into great sadness.

The year 1953 was terrible for Rachel and his mother. His father died.
Grataloup is 17 years old. His mother earns little money and the young man has to leave school to work.

He enrolled in the evening classes, in an annex of the Beaux-Arts, at the college Saint-Jean. He rents a former L'Économique grocery store and makes his workshop of it.

It is also at this period that he will make his first canvas, representing the roofs of a velvet factory that he sees from his window and which will prove to belong, much later, to Milena’s paternal grandfather, today his wife.

Did you say chance…?