Marc Chagall (born 24 June 1887 / 6 July 1887 in Peskovatik, now a district of Vitebsk, Russian Empire, now Belarus; died 28 March 1985 in Saint-Paul-de-Vence, France) was a Russian-French painter of Jewish religious affiliation. His birth name was Мойше Хацкелевич Шагал / Moische Chazkelewitsch Schagal.
His family environment, his hometown of Vitebsk and motifs from the Bible and the circus are the main themes of his paintings. He also used the same, recurring symbols in his mosaics and in the windows and theater sets he designed. Chagall is considered one of the most important painters of the 20th century. He is often associated with Expressionism and is referred to as a "painter-poet".
Chagall received his first artistic training from 1907 to 1910 in St. Petersburg at the private Swanseva art school, which was run by Léon Bakst. Chagall then went to Paris, where he became acquainted with current art movements and the avant-garde, which influenced his painting. The artist had his first solo exhibition in 1914 in Herwarth Walden's Berlin gallery "Der Sturm". However, Chagall experienced the outbreak of the First World War in his hometown of Vitebsk - there he was appointed Commissar for Fine Arts in 1918. He also founded an art academy where El Lissitzky and Kazimir Malevich also taught. In 1922 Chagall turned his back on Russia for good and lived initially in Berlin, then in Paris from 1923. In 1923 he was commissioned by the important art dealer Ambroise Vollard to illustrate Nikolai Gogol's novel "Dead Souls". Further commissions for illustration cycles followed from 1927, such as the fables of La Fontaine. From 1931 to 1939, and from 1952 onwards, Marc Chagall worked on his Bible illustrations, which were published in 1956.
Marc Chagall combined elements from Russian folk art, Jewish mysticism and old legends in his art, but also created scenes that were combined with dream images. There are often recurring motifs in his oeuvre, such as the lovers, the crescent moon, the rooster or the Jewish shtetl.
In 1941, Chagall decided to emigrate to the USA. The Museum of Modern Art in New York showed the first comprehensive retrospective of his works in 1946. In 1947, after the end of the Second World War, the artist returned to Paris and finally settled in Saint-Paul-de-Vence in 1950, where he died on March 28, 1985.
