Jāzeps was raised in typical bourgeois traditions and from an early age was educated in foreign languages, piano play and painting.

He also had opportunity to meet art historian Kurt Glaser and see original paintings of van Gogh and Manet from his collection.

In 1911 Grosvalds was drafted into Russian imperial army and spent his one-year service in cavalry regiment which was based in Lithuania.

Critical of the opportunities presented by the Munich art establishment, Grosvalds went to Paris in 1910, where he studied at several private academies (for example La Palette).

In summer of 1914, just before a war was breaking out over Europe, Grosvalds returned to Riga with several other Latvian painters Konrāds Ubāns, Voldemars Tone and Aleksandrs Drēviņš.