Chagall
Marc Chagall was born into a strict Jewish family for whom the ban on representations of the human figure had the weight of dogma. A failure in the entrance examination for the Stieglitz School did not stop Chagall from later joining that famous school founded by the Imperial Society for the Encouragement of the Arts and directed by Nicholas Roerich. Chagall moved to Paris in 1910. The city was his “second Vitebsk”. At first, isolated in the little room on the Impasse du Maine at La Ruche, Chagall soon found numerous compatriots also attracted by the prestige of Paris: Lipchitz, Zadkine, Archipenko and Soutine, all of whom were to maintain the “smell” of his native land. From his very arrival Chagall wanted to “discover everything”. And to his dazzled eyes painting did indeed reveal itself. Even the most attentive and partial observer is at times unable to distinguish the “Parisian”, Chagall from the “Vitebskian”. The artist was not full of contradictions, nor was he a split personality, but he always remained different; he looked around and within himself and at the surrounding world, and he used his present thoughts and recollections. He had an utterly poetical mode of thought that enabled him to pursue such a complex course. Chagall was endowed with a sort of stylistic immunity: he enriched himself without destroying anything of his own inner structure. Admiring the works of others he studied them ingenuously, ridding himself of his youthful awkwardness, yet never losing his authenticity for a moment.
At times Chagall seemed to look at the world through magic crystal – overloaded with artistic experimentation – of the Ecole de Paris. In such cases he would embark on a subtle and serious play with the various discoveries of the turn of the century and turned his prophetic gaze like that of a biblical youth, to look at himself ironically and thoughtfully in the mirror. Naturally, it totally and uneclectically reflected the painterly discoveries of Cézanne, the delicate inspiration of Modigliani, and the complex surface rhythms recalling the experiments of the early Cubists (See-Portrait at the Easel, 1914). Despite the analyses which nowadays illuminate the painter’s Judaeo-Russian sources, inherited or borrowed but always sublime, and his formal relationships, there is always some share of mystery in Chagall’s art. The mystery perhaps lies in the very nature of his art, in which he uses his experiences and memories. Painting truly is life, and perhaps life is painting.
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Biography
Self-Portrait
1909
Oil on canvas, 57 × 48 cm
Kunstsammlung Nordrhein-Westfalen, Düsseldort
7 July 1887: Marc Zakharovich Chagall, the son of a fish vendor, was born in Vitebsk.
1906: Studied at the art school of Yuri Pen in Vitebsk, leaving for St. Petersburg in the winter.
1907–1910: Studied at the Drawing School of the Society for the Encouragement of the Arts, St. Petersburg (then directed by Nicholas Roerich) and the private school of S. Saidenberg; entered the private art school of Yelizaveta Zvantseva, where he studied under Léon Bakst and Matislav Dobuzhinsky. Showed his works at the school exhibition held in the office of the magazine Apollon.
1910–1914: Lived in Paris, on the Impasse du Maine. In 1911, moved to La Ruche. Met Pablo Picasso, Georges Braque, Fernand Léger, Amedeo Modigliani, Alexander Arkhipenko, Guillaume Apollinaire, Max Jacob, Blaise Cendrars, and other famous artists and writers. Exhibited at the Salon des Independants and the Salon d’Automne in Paris, with the Donkey’s Tail group in Moscow, at Der Sturm Gallery in Berlin (first one-man show) and also in St. Petersburg and Amsterdam. On the eve of the war, returned to Vitebsk.
July 1915: Married Bella Rosenfeld.
1915–1917: Worked in Petrograd, served on the military-industrial committee. Exhibited in Moscow and Petrograd.
1916: Birth of his daughter Ida.
1918–1919: Appointed Commissar for the Arts in the Regional Department of People’s Education in Vitebsk. Set up and ran (from early 1919) an art school in Vitebsk, where the teachers included Mstislav Dobuzhinsky, Ivan Puni and Kasimir Malevich. Headed the Free Painting Workshop (Svomas) and the museum. Organized the celebrations in 1918 for the first anniversary of the October Revolution. Took part in the First State Free Exhibition held in the Winter Palace, Petrograd.
1920–1921: Conflict with Malevich and Lissitzky forced Chagall to leave Vitebsk. He lived in and near Moscow, producing works for the Jewish Chamber Theatre and teaching in the Malakhovka and Third International colonies for homeless children. Began work on the book My Life.
1922: Joint exhibition in Moscow with Nathan Altman and David Sterenberg.
1922–1923: Travelled to Kaunas with an exhibition of his works. Visited Berlin and Paris. Settled in Paris in September 1923. Produced etchings for My Life and began work on illustrations to Gogol’s Dead Souls.
1926: One-man shows in Paris and New York.
1930–1931: Worked on illustrations for the Bible. Travelled to Switzerland, Palestine, Syria and Egypt. Exhibitions in Paris, Brussels and New York.
1933: At Goebbels’ command, Chagall’s works were burnt in public in Mannheim. Exhibition in Basle.
1935: Visited Poland.
1937: Granted French citizenship. Travelled to Italy.
1939: Carnegie Prize (USA).
1940: Moved to the Loire and then to Provence.
1941: Arrested in Marseille and then freed. Moved to the USA.
1942: Worked for theatres in the USA and Mexico.
1944: Death of Bella Chagall in New York.
1945: Set designs and costumes for Stravinsky’s ballet The Firebird.
1946: Exhibitions in New York and Chicago.
1947: Exhibition at the Musée National d’Art Moderne in Paris.
1948: Returned to France. Publication of Dead Souls with illustrations by Chagall. Exhibitions in Amsterdam and London. Travelled widely in this and the following years.
1950: Moved to Vence, near Nice. Worked on lithographs and ceramics.
1951: First stone sculptures. Large exhibitions in Bern and Jerusalem.
1952: Married Valentina Brodsky. Visit to Greece.
1953–1955: Major exhibitions in Turin, Vienna and Hanover.
1956: Publication of the Bible with illustrations by Chagall.
1957: Began work on stained-glass windows (for Assy, Metz, Jerusalem, New York, London, Zurich, Reims, Nice). Exhibitions of graphic works in Basle and Zurich.
1959: Murals in the foyer of the Theatre in Frankfurt am Main. Exhibitions in Paris, Munich and Hamburg.
1963: Exhibitions in Japan.
1964: Ceiling paintings in the Opera in Paris. First mosaics and tapestries.
1966: Moved to Saint-Paul-de-Vence. Painted murals in the Metropolitan Opera in New York.
1969–1970: Foundation of the Musée Chagall in Nice. Major retrospective exhibition at the Grand Palais in Paris.
June 1973: Trips to Moscow and Leningrad at the invitation of the USSR Ministry of Culture.
July 1973: Opening of the Musée Chagall in Nice.
October 1977: Exhibition of paintings produced between 1967 and 1977 in the Louvre.
1982–1984: Major exhibitions in Stockholm, Copenhagen, Paris, Nice, Rome and Basle.
28 March 1985: Marc Chagall died at Saint-Paul-de-Vence in the ninety-eighth year of his life.
1987: Major exhibition of Chagall’s works in Moscow.
Through one of those curious reversals of fate, one more exile has regained his native land. Since the exhibition of his work at the Pushkin Museum of Fine Arts in Moscow in 1987 which gave rise to an extraordinary popular fervour, Marc Chagall has experienced a second birth.
Kermis
