Russian and French painter of Jewish
origin, graphic artist, painter, stage designer, poet. The representative of
the artistic avant-garde. His works can be associated with some modern art
movements, from Fauvism to Surrealism, although he produced and is well
distinguished by his own unique poetic style.
Born in the town of Liozno near Vitebsk, Chagall attended four-year public school in Vitebsk (1900-1905), and studied painting in the studio of local artist Yehuda Pen (1906). In 1909 Chagall moved to St. Petersburg, here he attended for two years the School of Drawing with the Society for Artists Encouragement, founded by Nikolay Roerich, then studied at Elena Zvantseva’s art college under Leon Bakst. In 1911 Chagall went to Paris, where he met prominent artists and poets – Blaise Cendrars, Guillaume Apollinaire, Fernand Leger, Robert Delaunay. In 1914 Chagal returned to Vitebsk. After the revolution he was appointed commissar for art in Vitebsk province. In 1920 he moved to Moscow, where he worked at the Jewish Chamber Theater, then taught in a Jewish Labor School-colony III International, located near Moscow. In 1922 his family moved first to Lithuania, where Chagall had his personal exhibition, and then to Germany. In autumn 1923, following the invitation of Ambroise Vollard, Chagall moved with his family to Paris, thus he finally settled in France, only tooking refugee during the World War II in the United States (1941-1947). In 1973 at the invitation of the Soviet Ministry of Culture Chagall visited Moscow and Leningrad. Died in Saint-Paul deVence at the French Riviera.
Chagall's creativity does not fit into the framework of any definite style or artistic movement, as well as any national school. Jewish heritage and folklore are major sourses for his imagery, where fiction is conflated with reality and everyday objects became universal symbols. He produced paintings, drawings, stained glass, sculpture, mosaics, tapestries, created illustrations, working as printmaker in the techniques of etching, dry point, aquatint, color and monochrome lithographs, woodcuts. Over sixty years Chagall has completed a lot of illustrations to literary works, among which the most significant are: My Life (1922-1923), Dead Souls by Nikolai Gogol (1927), Fables of La Fontaine (1930-1952), a series of Seven Deadly Sins (1926), illustrations for The Bible (1931-1939, 1952-1956), A Thousand and One Nights (1948), Daphnis and Chloe (1957-1960), The Odyssey of Homer (1974-1975), The Tempest by Shakespeare (1975), "And on earth ..." by Andre Malraux (1977) and many others.
