Thais Jaspar (nee Philippovitch) was born into an aristocratic family in Tobolsk, Siberia. When the Bolshevik Revolution of 1917 imperilled their livelihood, the family with two young daughters relocated to Harbin, China. Taisia studied art sporadically, first in Harbin, then in Shanghai, with Mikhail Kichigin and Victor Podgoursky.

Endowed with beauty and social graces, Taisia moved to Shanghai and mingled with the foreign elite. She relentlessly solicited funds for benevolent projects, focused on the women of the diaspora, initiating the creation of the Russian Women's Hostel in the French Concession and the expansion of the Russian Women’s Professional School. In 1938, she married the French diplomat Andre Jaspar and used her high position in society to continue fundraising for charitable causes.

Aside from her benevolent work, Thais Jaspar also worked at perfecting her painting skills. She spent several months studying art in France, then returned to Shanghai to become a student of Mikhail Kichigin. Thanks to his tutelage, she started to exhibit at Shanghai’s art shows alongside Victor Podgoursky, Vera Kuznetzova and others. Her solo exhibition at the French Club, in November 1940, had newspaper critics call her “a hardworking, consistent and talented artist.” Jaspar’s portraits, executed in a florid, flattering style, were favoured by her Chinese and foreign clients and became another instrument of influence in her charity work.

In the 1940s, as her husband was secretly aiding the Free France movement, Thais Jaspar was helping Shanghai artists survive the wartime. Among her protégés was the singer Alexander Vertinsky, who struggled to stay afloat in Japanese-occupied Shanghai. For Mikhail Kichigin and Vera Kuznetzova she found clients for their artworks and solicited a lucrative commission to redecorate the French Club. Together with Kuznetzova, Jaspar worked for the Soviet Consulate, creating propaganda tableaux, portraits of political leaders and patriotic scenes. She also began to teach art clases.

In 1947, Thais Jaspar followed her husband to Paris, but remained keen to pursue repatriation to the USSR. Having returned to Shanghai in 1949, she succeeded in obtaining Soviet citizenship and in 1952 moved to Kiev. There she remarried and worked as an artist, illustrator and author of children’s books.