Marc Chagall was born in 1887 and died in 1985. He was the
eldest of nine children and his Jewish family were poor and lived in Western
Russia. At 19 Chagall joined a local art school run by Yehuda Pen, who painted
realistic scenes and portraits. Chagall soon got a job retouching photographs
which earned him money. In 1906-1907 he went to the city of St Petersburg in
Russia. He started displaying his work while studying at the School of Imperial
Society for the Protection of the Fine Arts. The schools director Nicholai
Roerich was very supporting and encouraging. Although, after 2 years, Chagall
found that the teaching in the art school was boring, the atmosphere was cold
and all around it was depressing. In 1907 he began studying art with Leon
Bakst. In October 1909 on one of his visits home he met Bella Rosenfeld. She
often appears in his paintings and he later married her. It was at this time
that his distinct style that we recognize today began to emerge. In 1910 he
moved to Paris for 4 years. Chagall arrived in Paris at a time when Cubism was beginning and cubists
encouraged him to use bright colours and experiment with different styles. Even
though he lived in Paris, a lot of his inspirations were from his life in
Russia. In 1914, Chagall had an exhibition of his own work in Berlin. From
there he travelled to Vitebsk, his home town, while he was there, World War 1
broke out and he couldn’t leave. In 1917, the Russian Revolution began and Jews
were allowed more freedom which he was very happy about. In 1920 he moved to Moscow
and painted a series of murals for the state Jewish chamber theatre. Chagall
thought that he did his best work here which included dancers, musicians,
acrobats, fiddlers and Jewish figures. Unfortunately, the authorities refused to
pay him and he left the country. In 1931, he was invited to Israel by the mayor
of Tel Aviv where he started a series of bible illustrations and other inspired
works. He travelled to Europe in the mid 1930’s and at the beginning of World
War 2; in the middle of 1941 he was rescued by an invitation from the Museum Of
Modern Art in New York to come to the United States. Sadly his wife died
suddenly in 1944. In 1948 he returned to France and throughout his lifetime he
was involved in many big projects around the world.
He was friends with Robert Delaunay, Amadeo Modigliani and
Roger de La Fresnave. Delaunay helped Chagall notice geometric shapes and
segments of bright colours. Chagall's use of rich and vibrant colours and story-telling aspect of
the work is uniquely his own. His paintings
were full of strong, bright colours portraying a dreamlike state. This
included; Fantasy, nostalgia and religion that began to meld together to
