Marc Chagall was born Moishe Shagal; his name was rendered in the Russian language as Mark Zakharovich Shagalov. Chagall was born in Vitebsk, Russian Empire (now in Belarus), the oldest of nine children in the close-knit Jewish family led by his father, a herring merchant Khatskl (Zakhar) Shagal, and his mother, Feige-Ite. This period of his life, described as happy though impoverished, appears in references throughout Chagall's work.
Beginning to study painting in 1906 under famed local artist Yehuda (Yudl) Pen, Chagall moved to St. Petersburg only a few months later in 1907. There he joined the school of the Society of Art Supporters and studied under Nikolai Roerich, encountering artists of every school and style. From 1908-1910 he studied under Leon Bakst at Zvantseva's School.
This period was difficult for Chagall — Jewish residents at the time could only live in St. Petersburg with a permit, and he was jailed for a brief time. Chagall remained in St. Petersburg until 1910, and regularly visited his home town where in 1909 he met his future wife, Bella Rosenfeld.
After becoming known as an artist, he left St. Petersburg to settle in Paris in order to be near the art community of the Montparnasse district, where he became a friend of Guillaume Apollinaire, Robert Delaunay, and Fernand Léger. In 1914, he returned to Vitebsk and a year later married his fiancée, Bella. World War I erupted while Chagall was in Russia. In 1916, the Chagalls had a daughter, Ida.
Chagall became an active participant in the Russian Revolution of 1917. The Soviet Ministry of Culture made him a Commissar of Art for the Vitebsk region, where he founded an art school. He did not fare well politically under the Soviet system. He and his wife moved to Moscow in 1920 and back to Paris in 1923. During this period, he published memoirs in Yiddish, which were originally written in Russian and translated into French by Bella Chagall; he also wrote articles, poetry and memoirs in Yiddish, published mainly in newspapers (and only posthumously in a book form). He became a French citizen in 1937.
With the Nazi occupation of France during World War II, and the deportation of Jews and the Holocaust, the Chagalls fled Paris. He hid at Villa Air-Bel in Marseille and the American journalist Varian Fry assisted his escape from France through Spain and Portugal. In 1941, the Chagalls settled in the United States of America.
On September 2, 1944, his beloved Bella, the constant subject of his paintings and companion of his life, died from an illness. Two years later in 1946 he returned to Europe. By 1949 he was working in Provence, France. The same year, Chagall took part in the creation of the MRAP anti-fascist NGO.
Lifted, he was able to rise out of his depression when he met Virginia Haggard, with whom he had a son, and was also aided by the theatrical commissions he got. During these intense years, he rediscovered a free and vibrant color. His works of this period are dedicated to love and the joy of life, with curved, sinuous figures. He also began to work in sculpture, ceramics, and stained glass.
Chagall remarried in 1952 to Valentina Brodsky (whom he called "Vava"). He travelled several times to Greece, and in 1957 visited Israel, where in 1960 he created stained glass windows for the synagogue of the Hadassah Ein Kerem hospital in Jerusalem and in 1966, wall art for the new parliament being constructed in that city.
During the Six Day War the hospital came under severe attack and Chagall's paintings came under threat. In response to this Chagall famously wrote a letter from France stating "I am not worried about the windows, only about the safety of Israel. Let Israel be safe and I will make you lovelier windows.". Luckily, only one of them was damaged as most of the windows were taken down in time.
At the age of 97, Marc died in Saint-Paul de Vence, France on March 28, 1985. At the cemetery of Saint-Paul de Vence, he was buried. His plot is the most westerly aisle upon entering the cemetery.
Anyone who has visited Lincoln Center in New York City is familiar with the huge mosaic murals in the lobby of the new Metropolitan Opera House which opened in 1966. Also in New York the United Nations Headquarters has a stained glass wall of his work. In 1967 the UN commemorated this art with both a postage stamp and a souvenir sheet.
In 1973, the Musée National Message Biblique Marc Chagall (Chagall Museum) opened in Nice, France.
The museum in Vitebsk, which bears his name, was founded in 1997 in the building where his family lived on 29 Pokrovskaia street — though until his death, years before the fall of the Soviet Bloc, he was persona non grata in his homeland. The museum only has copies of his work.
Jon Anderson, singer from the popular group Yes, met Chagall in the town of Opio, France as a young musician. Jon credits him as a seminal inspiration. He has recorded a piece of music named Chagall, in his honor; and named the charitable Opio Foundation he established for the connection.
In 2005, musician Tori Amos recorded and released the composition "Garlands," with lyrics inspired by a series of Chagall lithographs.
THE ART OF CHAGALL
Chagall took inspiration from Belarusian folk-life, and portrayed many Biblical themes reflecting his Jewish heritage. In the 1960s and 1970s, Chagall involved himself in large-scale projects involving public spaces and important civic and religious buildings.
Chagall's works fit into several modern art categories. He took part in the movements of the Paris art world which preceded World War I and was thus involved with avant-garde currents. However, his work always found itself on the margins of these movements and emerging trends, including Cubism and Fauvism. He was closely associated with the Paris School and its exponents, including Amedeo Modigliani.
His works abound with references to his childhood, yet often neglect some of the turmoil which he experienced. He communicates happiness and optimism to those who view his works by means of highly vivid colors. Chagall often posed himself, sometimes together with his wife, as an observer of the world — a colored world like that seen through a stained-glass window. Some see The White Crucifixion, which abounds in rich, intriguing detail, as a denunciation of the Stalin regime, the Nazi Holocaust, and all oppression of the Jews.
This content provided courtesy of wikipedia.
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