1887 - 1914

Chagall was born in Vitebsk - now Belarus - to a devout Jewish family and moved to St Petersburgh in 1907 to study at a minor art school while working as a sign painter. After this Chagall went to Paris where he was influenced by the Cubists and developed friendships with Apollinaire, Delauney and Leger. However, despite these influences, his subject matter largely reflected life in Vitebsk and in 1914 he returned home and was drawn back into his Jewish heritage and married . His marriage resulted in a series of exuberant paintings of lovers.

1918 - 1922

After the Revolution in 1918 Chagall was appointed director of the Vitebsk art school which became a centre for avant-garde ideas. He was however ousted and moved to Moscow where he worked as theatrical designer for the Jewish State Theatre where he executed murals.

1922 - 1950

From Moscow he went to Berlin to carry out some etchings for Vollard and was then invited to Paris and illustrated Gogol’s Dead Souls and La Fontaine’s Fables. After publishing his autobiography in 1930 he started to prepare illustrations for the Bible and in 1941 fled Nazi occupied France for the USA where he worked on ballet and theatre projects for the duration of the war. His wife died in 1944 and he started a relationship with his housekeeper who bore him a son.

1950 - 1985

In the 50s Chagall and his American wife moved to Provence , but she left him in 1952 and he married Valentina Brodsky ‘Vava”. Chagall visited Greece and Israel and rediscovered a free and vibrant use of colour, his works in this period are dedicated to love and the joy of life. He also began to work in sculpture, ceramics and stained glass.

Chagall was not a practicing Jew but through his paintings and stained glass continually tried to suggest a more universal message using both Jewish and Christian themes. His stained glass windows can be seen in St Stephen’s Cathedral Mainz, the synagogue of the Hadassa Ein Kerem hospital in Jerusalem, the U.N. public lobby among other churches and buildings including the museum in Nice which he helped design.

Chagall was the last surving master of European modernism, he outlived Joan Miro by two years.

"When Matisse dies, Chagall will be the only painter left who understands what colour really is." Picasso

“All colours are the friends of their neighbours and lovers of their opposites”

“If I were not a Jew… I wouldn’t have been an artist, or I would have been a very different artist altogether."