Marc Chagall

 

 

Marc Chagall was born Moishe Shagal on July 7, 1887 in Vitebsk, a small town in present-day Belarus. He grew up in an orthodox Jewish family, which had a profound influence on him. His childhood was influenced by the culture of the shtetl and the Jewish faith, and these motifs would later play a central role in his works. He showed a special talent for drawing at an early age. He pursued his artistic ambitions against the opposition of his family, who preferred to see him in a traditional profession.

 

In 1906, Chagall moved to St. Petersburg to study at Léon Bakst's art school from 1908 to 1910. It was in the then capital of the Russian Empire that he first came into contact with the trends of modern art and began to combine traditional artistic techniques with his own surreal and poetic visions.

 

 

Return to Russia and the revolutionary years

With the outbreak of the First World War, Chagall returned to Russia in 1914. There he married Bella Rosenfeld, his childhood sweetheart, who would be his muse and great source of inspiration throughout his life. The turmoil of the Russian Revolution and the founding of the Soviet Union shaped Chagall's life and art in the following years. He was appointed head of an art school in his home town of Vitebsk, where he attempted to combine his artistic vision with the ideology of the new Soviet government. However, political tensions and artistic differences ultimately led to Chagall moving to Moscow in 1920 and later leaving Russia for good.

 

Exile in Paris and escape from the Second World War

In 1923, Chagall returned to Paris with his family and became an integral part of the international art scene. He worked with the famous art dealer Ambroise Vollard and created several important cycles of works, including illustrations for Gogol's Dead Souls and La Fontaine's Fables. His art from this period is characterized by intense colors, surreal figures and a lively mixture of memories of Russia, Jewish myths and love scenes with his wife Bella.

With the rise of National Socialism in the 1930s, the conditions for Jewish artists like Chagall in Europe worsened. In 1941, after the occupation of France by the Germans, Chagall fled to the United States. During this time, he reflected on the suffering of the Jewish people and the horrors of war in works such as The White Crucifixion (1938). The Holocaust theme is visible in many of his paintings from this period, and his art is increasingly accompanied by a melancholy, sombre note.

 

Post-war period and international recognition

After the war, Chagall returned to France in 1948 to settle in Provence. This period marked a phase of great recognition and creativity. He turned increasingly to monumental art and created important works such as stained glass windows, murals and stage sets. His glass works for religious and public buildings are particularly noteworthy, including the windows for Reims Cathedral, the synagogue of the Hadassah Clinic in Jerusalem and the United Nations in New York.

Chagall's art, which is often associated with the style of Surrealism, nevertheless always remains strongly imbued with personal and spiritual motifs. His works are characterized by bright colors, floating figures and a dream logic that often combines scenes of everyday life, religious themes and memories of rural Jewish life in Eastern Europe.

 

Late work and legacy

In his later years, Chagall was honored and celebrated worldwide. In 1964, he designed the ceiling of the Opéra Garnier in Paris, a monumental work that celebrates the diversity of art forms. Chagall was artistically active until the last years of his life and continued to create works in the fields of painting, glasswork and lithography.

Marc Chagall died on March 28, 1985 in Saint-Paul-de-Vence, southern France, at the ripe old age of 97. His legacy as one of the most important painters of the 20th century remains unforgotten. Chagall's works embody a unique combination of dreams, memories and spiritual narratives that express universal themes such as love, loss and the search for identity through his masterful use of color and form.

 

Exhibitions

• 16.03.2023 – 11.06.2023: Marc Chagall: Le triomphe de la musique – Philharmonie de Paris, Paris.
• 28.09.2022 – 26.02.2023: Chagall: Modern Master – Albertina, Vienna.
• 20.11.2017 – 02.04.2018: Chagall: Fantasies for the Stage – Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA), Los Angeles.
• 16.10.2015 – 24.01.2016: Chagall: The Breakthrough Years, 1911-1919 – Schirn Kunsthalle, Frankfurt am Main.
• 21.02.2003 – 25.05.2003: Marc Chagall Retrospective – Musée du Luxembourg, Paris.

 

Awards

• 1977 Grand-Croix de la Légion d'Honneur, France
• 1965 Appointed honorary citizen of Nice, France
• 1962 Honorary citizen of the French town of Vence
• 1960 Appointed honorary member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters, USA
• 1948 Carnegie Prize for Painting, Pittsburgh, USA

 

Films

• Chagall: A Light in the Darkness, documentary, 57 min, USA, 2021.
• Marc Chagall – Between two worlds, documentary, 52 min, France, 2020.

 

Literature

• Chagall: Welt in Aufruhr, Ilka Voermann, Munich 2022.
• Marc Chagall: The Lost Jewish World, Benjamin Harshav, New Haven 2006.
• Marc Chagall: Life and Love, Jackie Wullschlager, New York 2008.
• Marc Chagall, Traum, Vision und Wirklichkeit, Charles Sorlier, Munich 1995.
• Chagall: Fantasies for the Stage, Stephanie Barron, LACMA, Los Angeles 2017.

 

Collections

France

• Nice - Musée National Marc Chagall
• Paris - Centre Pompidou

 

USA

• New York - Museum of Modern Art (MoMA)
• Los Angeles - Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA)

 

Russis

• Saint Petersburg - Staatliches Russisches Museum

 

Schwitzerland

• Zürich - Kunsthaus Zürich

 

Weblinks

• Official website of the Musée National Marc Chagall
• Marc Chagall on the Website of the MoMA