Marc Chagall (born July 7, 1887 in Vitebsk, Belarus – March 28, 1985, Saint-Paul, Alpes-Maritimes, France – Russian Empire – died March 28, 1985, Belarus ), French artist, printmaker and designer of Belarusian origin, painted his early works in various media including stage and ballet sets, Bible prints and poetry prints
He was an internationally acclaimed Russian-French-Jewish artist who was considered one of the most influential modernist artists of the 20th century, both an early modernist and an important part of Jewish artistic tradition. He paved his creative path despite the many difficulties and injustices he faced during his long life. According to the art historian Michael J. Lewis, Chagall was considered “the last survivor of the first generation of European modernists.
In the early modernist period, he was associated with several important styles of art and produced works in virtually every art format, including painting, book illustrations, stained glass windows, decorations, ceramics, tapestries and fine art reproductions, and moved to St. Petersburg in 1906, then the capital of the Russian Empire and the center of the country’s artistic life with its famous art schools.
Since Jews were not allowed into the city without an internal passport, he was able to obtain a temporary passport from a friend. He spent the war years in Soviet Belarus and founded the Vitebsk art school before returning to Paris in 1923. Working in a relatively realistic style, he painted the plot rooms and a number of old workshops; Examples from the series:
Chagall combined his personal fairy-tale imagery with hints of Fauvism and Cubism, popular in France at the time, to create his most lasting works, including Me and the Country (1911), some of which will be on display at the Salon des Indépendants. Chagall also enrolled at a fully Jewish private art school at 19 and then moved to St. Petersburg to study in the Imperial Society of Cultures in 1907.
Despite his affair with Bella, a cash allowance from the Russian MP and philanthropist Maxim Binaver allowed Chagall in 1911 to move to Paris, France, leaving the position of commissar in 1920 to Moscow where he painted decorative panels for the Jewish State Chamber Theatre, but in 1922 left his miserable Soviet life and a year and a half later settled in Paris with Bella and their 6-year-old daughter Ida.
When Chagall died on March 28, 1985 at the age of 97 in Saint-Paul-de-Vence, Chagall still worked — sets and costumes for the American Ballet production from 1942 by Tchaikovsky Aleko and the 1945 version of Stravinsky The Firebird — and large murals for Lincoln Center and stained glass windows for the United States.
Chagall died on 28 March 1985 in Saint-Paul-de-Vence, France, after a long and fruitful creative career and continues to be studied and appreciated in numerous public and private collections around the world and his name has survived as a contemporary master of art history. At the time of his death he left a part of his extensive collection in various branches and styles of art.
Chagall’s work demonstrates a masterful understanding of color and deep emotional resonance, which is why his work is so popular to this day and his contribution to the twentieth century art world is one that only a few artists can claim.
Marc Chagall was awarded the highest French award – the Cross of the Legion of Honor – in 1977. On the occasion of the artist’s 90th birthday, his personal exhibition was organized in 1977-1978 in the Louvre and. Marc Chagall proved to be an excellent organizer. Dedicated to Vitebsk for the first anniversary of the October Revolution to “acquaint the masses with art”. Marc Chagall enthusiastically decorated it.
Mark Chagall ran the Free Academy in Vitebsk, which became an important art center where many famous local and foreign artists worked as teachers. But a day after returning home from Moscow, he discovered that the Academy of Suprematism had been turned into the Academy of Suprematism. In 1920, Chagall took an active part in the theatrical life and created sketches for performances.
Chagall first worked on stage design in 1914 as a hasidic Lithuanian man living in Chicago under the inspiration of the theater designer and artist Leon Bakst, and by birth was a Belarusian Jew.
In 2013 previously unknown works of Chagall were discovered in a cache of hidden art by the son of one of Hitler’s art dealers Hildebrand Gurlitt. In the 1990s, Daniel Jamison wrote the play “The Flying Lovers of Vitebsk” about the life of Chagall and Bella’s partner.
