Wikipedia entry
Introduction
Marc Chagall (born Moishe Shagal; 6 July [O.S. 24 June] 1887 – 28 March 1985) was a Russian-French artist. An early modernist, he was associated with several major artistic styles and created works in a wide range of artistic formats, including painting, drawings, book illustrations, stained glass, stage sets, ceramics, tapestries and fine art prints. Chagall was born in 1887 into a Jewish family near Vitebsk, today in Belarus, but at the time in the Pale of Settlement of the Russian Empire. Before World War I, he travelled between Saint Petersburg, Paris, and Berlin. During this period he created his own mixture and style of modern art based on his idea of Eastern Europe and Jewish folk culture. He spent the wartime years in his native Belarus, becoming one of the country's most distinguished artists and a member of the modernist avant-garde, founding the Vitebsk Arts College. He later worked in and near Moscow in difficult conditions in a tough time in Russia, before leaving again for Paris in 1923. During World War II, he escaped occupied France to the United States, where he lived for 7 years in New York City before returning to France in 1948. Art critic Robert Hughes referred to Chagall as "the quintessential Jewish artist of the twentieth century". According to art historian Michael J. Lewis, Chagall was considered to be "the last survivor of the first generation of European modernists". For decades, he "had also been respected as the world's pre-eminent Jewish artist". Using the medium of stained glass, he produced windows for the cathedrals of Reims and Metz as well as the Fraumünster in Zürich, windows for the UN and the Art Institute of Chicago and the Jerusalem Windows in Israel. He also did large-scale paintings, including part of the ceiling of the Paris Opéra. He had two basic reputations, writes Lewis: as a pioneer of modernism and as a major Jewish artist. He experienced modernism's "golden age" in Paris, where "he synthesized the art forms of Cubism, Symbolism, and Fauvism, and the influence of Fauvism gave rise to Surrealism". Yet throughout these phases of his style "he remained most emphatically a Jewish artist, whose work was one long dreamy reverie of life in his native village of Vitebsk." "When Matisse dies," Pablo Picasso remarked in the 1950s, "Chagall will be the only painter left who understands what colour really is".
Wikidata
Q93284
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Getty record
Introduction
Chagall was a prolific artist who was famous for his use of color and folkloric imagery. He preferred to be known as a Belarusian artist; however, following his exile from the Soviet Union in 1923 he was known as a major figure of the French École de Paris. Artist, b. in Russia, lived in France. Comment on works: religious, genre,
Nationalities
Belarusian, French, Russian
Gender
Male
Roles
Artist, Ceramicist, Writer, Designer, Engraver, Glass Designer, Genre Artist, Illustrator, Painter, Sculptor
Names
Marc Chagall, Mark Shagal, Mark Zakharovich Shagal, Moses Shagal, Mark Sacharovich Schagal Chagall, Marḳ Shagal, M. Shagal, Syagal, Marŭkkŭ Syagal, Mark Shahal, Moshe Segal, Марк Шагал, מארק שאגאל, מ. שאגאל, מרק שגל, Mark Zakharovich Shagal', Marc Szagal, Chagall, m. chagall
Ulan
500115354
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Information from Getty’s Union List of Artist Names ® (ULAN), made available under the ODC Attribution License

Works

215 works online

Exhibitions

View all 116 exhibitions

Publications

  • MoMA Highlights: 375 Works from The Museum of Modern Art Introduction by Glenn D. Lowry, 2019 Flexibound, 408 pages
  • MoMA Now: Highlights from The Museum of Modern Art—Ninetieth Anniversary Edition Introduction by Glenn D. Lowry, 2019 Hardcover, 424 pages
  • Marc Chagall James Johnson Sweeney, 1946 Clothbound, pages
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