Marc Chagall

March Chagall was born in 1887 and died in 1985 – he was a French painter of Russian Jewish descent, born in Belarus. Chagall is associated with the modern art movements after the impressionist period.

Marc Chagall, whose real name is Moishe Shagal, grew up as the eldest of 9 children in a happy but impoverished Jewish family, where his father was a herring merchant. Chagall started studying painting in 1906 with a local artist Yehuda Pen. He then moved to St. Petersburg and joined the school of the Society of Art Supporters. Eventually he met his future wife, Bella Rosenfeld, in his home town in 1909. Chagall and his wife settled in Paris in order to be close to the art community. In 1944 Chagall’s wife passed away from an illness – she was a constant subject of his art. Chagall took Virginia Haggard as a lover and had a son – he came out of his depression (after his first wife died), and rediscovered bright fun colors and his works are filled with the joy of life. He also started working with ceramics, stained glass, and sculpture. Chagall remarried in 1952 to Valentina Brodsky, traveled to Greece, and created stained glass windows for the synagogue of the Hadassah Ein Kerem hospital in Jerusalem in 1960. Marc Chagall passed away at the age of 97, in Saint-Paul de Vence, France.

Marc Chagall was inspired by Belarusian folk life, biblical themes, and public spaces (in the 60s and 70s). The artist was involved in the avant-garde movement, Cubism, and Fauvism. Chagall’s paintings greatly reflect his childhood, and he often used himself posed, as an observer of the world. Chagall used many symbols in his art work such as a cow, tree, cock, bosom, fiddler, herring, pendulum clock, candlestick, windows, houses of Vitebsk, a circus, the crucifixion of Jesus, horses and the Eiffel Tower. Each of these symbols had a specific meaning and theme for Chagall.

Common misspellings: Chagal Chegall, Chegell, Chagell, Chagel

Quotes by Marc Chagall

• "I work in whatever medium likes me at the moment."
• "If a symbol should be discovered in a painting of mine, it was not my intention. It is a result I did not seek. It is something that may be found afterwards, and which can be interpreted according to taste."
• "All colors are the friends of their neighbors and the lovers of their opposites."
• "Great art picks up where nature ends."
• "I am out to introduce a psychic shock into my painting, one that is always motivated by pictorial reasoning: that is to say, a fourth dimension."
• "In our life there is a single color, as on an artist's palette, which provides the meaning of life and art. It is the color of love."
• "Will there be anymore!"
• "We all know that a good person can be a bad artist. But no one will ever be a genuine artist unless he is a great human being and thus also a good one."
• "Only love interest me, and I am only in contact with things I love."
• "My name is Marc, my emotional life is sensitive and my purse is empty, but they say I have talent."
• "Will God or someone give me the power to breathe my sigh into my canvases, the sigh of prayer and sadness, the prayer of salvation, of rebirth?"

Art Work by Marc Chagall

• Young Woman on a Sofa (Mariaska), 1907, (Private collection)
• The Wedding, 1910
• The Birth, 1910, Kunsthaus Zürich
• The Birthday, 1915, New York, Museum of Modern Art
• Bella with White Collar, 1917
• The Blue House, 1917–1920
• The Tailor, 1922
• The Fall of the Angels, 1923–1947, Kunstmuseum Basel
• Green Violinist, 1923–1924, Guggenheim Museum
• Dream Village, 1929, San Antonio, TX, McNay Art Museum
• The Female Acrobat, 1930, Paris, Musée National d´Art Moderne
• Solitude, 1933, Tel Aviv Museum
• Midsummer Night's Dream, 1939
• The Red Rooster, 1940, Cincinnati Art Museum
• Madonna with sleighs, 1947, Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam
• La Mariée (The Bride), 1950 — featured in the 1999 film Notting Hill
• Lovers in the Red Sky, 1950
• Moses receiving the Tablets of the Law, 1950–1952
• The Green Night, 1952
• The Bastille, 1953
• Bridge over the Seine, 1954, Hamburger Kunsthalle
• Champ de mars, 1954–1955, Museum Folkwang, Essen
• The Crossing of the Red Sea, 1955
• Commedia dell'arte, 1959 (Opern- und Schauspielhaus Frankfurt, Foyer)
• Self-portrait, 1959–1960
• King David, 1961
• The White Crucifixion 1938
• The Jerusalem Windows
• Four Seasons, 1974, Chase Tower, Chicago, Illinois [1]
• Scene de Cirque, 1980
• The Yellow Crucifixion 1943
• Ceiling of the Garnier Opera, 1964
• Exodus, 1952–1966
• War, 1964–1966, Kunsthaus Zürich
• Mosaic murals in the lobby of the Metropolitan Opera, New York, 1966
• Stage settings for Die Zauberflöte, Metropolitan Opera, New York, 1967
• Biblical-themed windows, 1968, Metz Cathedral
• The Prophet Jeremiah, 1968
• Job, 1975
• Biblical Message, 17 Works (Nice, Musée National)
• America Windows, 1977, Art Institute of Chicago
• The Yellow Donkey, 1979
• Biblical-themed windows, 1974, Reims Cathedral
• Family, (1975–1976)
• Nine biblical-themed windows in luminous blue, 1978–1985, St. Stephan Church, Mainz, Germany
• The Great Parade, 1979–1980, Pierre Matisse Gallery, New York.
• I and the Village, 1911, New York, Museum of Modern Art
• Adam and Eve, 1912
• Paris through the window, 1913, New York, Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum
• Self-Portrait with Seven Fingers, 1913, Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam
• The Violinist, 1911–1914, Düsseldorf, Germany, Kunstsammlung NRW