Posts in Category: july 6
Marc Chagall
Marc Chagall, Russian-French painter, July 6, 1887 – March 28, 1985.
Chagall was born Moishe Shagal near Vitebsk, then in the Russian Empire, now Belarus. He first studied in Vitebsk with Yehuda Pen, then in Saint Petersburg, and later in Paris at the Académie de La Palette. His teachers and artistic contacts included Pen in Vitebsk and, in Paris, exposure to Cubism, Fauvism, and the wider avant-garde.
Chagall lived in Vitebsk, Saint Petersburg, Paris, Berlin, Moscow, and again Vitebsk before leaving Soviet Russia in 1922. He lived in France for much of his mature career, spent the Second World War years in the United States, and returned to France after the war, eventually settling in the south of France.
His work combines modernist color and form with imagery drawn from Jewish life, Russian village memory, folklore, dreams, lovers, animals, musicians, and biblical themes. His major genres include painting, drawing, printmaking, book illustration, stained glass, tapestry, stage design, and large decorative commissions.
Chagall served briefly as Commissar of Arts for Vitebsk after the Russian Revolution and founded the People’s Art School there. He had major exhibitions in Europe and the United States and later received large public commissions, including stained glass windows and ceiling decorations. He was more important as a founder and artistic leader than as a formal teacher; artists associated with the Vitebsk school included El Lissitzky and Kazimir Malevich.
