Marc Chagall was born in Vitebsk, Russia in 1887 and lived to be 97 years old. His style, while reflective of cubist, expressionist, and surrealist affinities is distinctly personal. His contribution to early modern painting and printmaking has been of the first order.
Chagall went to St. Petersburg in 1907 where he entered a minor art school and at the same time working as a sign painter. Throughout his work a foundation of Russian art was evident. He went to Paris in 1910 where he came in contact with the Cubist painters Picasso and Braque. Shortly thereafter, his work began to show Cubist influence, but subjects generally remain of life in Vitebsk.
In 1914, Chagall returned home and contributed to Larionov's exhibitions and the Knave of Diamonds group. He was drawn back to his Jewish heritage, expressed now with a deep sense of pathos, as in the Praying Jew (1914). The love of his marriage resulted in a series of exuberant paintings of lovers and later bouquets.
After the Revolution, in 1918, Chagall was appointed director of the Vitebsk art school, which became a center of avant-garde ideas, but was soon ousted by Malevich and left for Moscow. From 1919 to 1922 he worked as theatrical designer for the Jewish State Theatre, executing murals there. In 1922 he went to Berlin, executing Mein leben etchings for Ambroise Vollard, the prominent art dealer, who then invited him to Paris to live and work.
In 1925-6, Chagall completed a set of illustrations for an edition of La Fontaine's Fables and held a one-man show in New York. In 1930, his autobiography, Ma Vie, was published, and Chagall began to prepare illustrations for the Bible, traveling to the Middle East. He went to the United States in 1941, producing the décor for Massine's ballet Aleko (1942) and Bohn's Firebird (1945) both for the Ballet Theater.
Chagall returned to France after the war. Of later work, his designs for stained-glass windows should be mentioned, and his paintings for the ceilings of the Paris Opera.
