Tate online - Susan Goodman - Jacob Baal -Teshuva - Henry McBride - Jackie Wullschlager - Marc Chagall - Fake or Fortune? TV - The Adventures of Modern Art TV -
Russian-born painter, lithographer, etcher and designer. Born in Vitebsk of a deeply religious Jewish family. First artistic instruction under Penn, a local painter, then spent 1907-10 in St Petersburg where he entered the Imperial School for the Protection of the Fine Arts, and later studied under Bakst. Lived 1910-14 in Paris, where he met Apollinaire, Delaunay, Leger, Modigliani and Lhote. Somewhat influenced by Cubism, but differed from it in his love of fantasy. First one-man exhibition at the Galerie Der Sturm, Berlin, 1914. Returned to Russia the same year and had to remain there because of the war. After the Revolution, appointed Fine Arts Commissar for the province of Vitebsk and directed an art academy; also executed murals for Granovsky’s Jewish Theatre in Moscow. Spent 1922-3 in Berlin, then 1923-40 in Paris, except for visits to Egypt, Palestine, Holland, Spain, Portugal and Italy; in addition to paintings, made illustrations for Gogol’s Dead Souls, La Fontaine’s Fables and the Bible. In the USA as a refugee 1941-7, then returned to France, settling in 1950 at Vence. His later works include a new ceiling painting for the Paris Opéra and, from 1957 a number of commissions for stained glass. Tate online
Chagall’s art can be understood as the response to a situation that has long marked the history of Russian Jews. Though they were cultural innovators who made important contributions to the broader society, Jews were considered outsiders in a frequently hostile society ... Chagall himself was born of a family steeped in religious life; his parents were observant Hasidic Jews who found spiritual satisfaction in a life defined by their faith and organized by prayer. Susan Goodman
Chagall was exhilarated, intoxicated, as he strolled through the streets and along the banks of the Seine. Everything about the French capital excited him: the shops, the smell of fresh bread in the morning, the markets with their fresh fruit and vegetables, the wide boulevards, the cafés and restaurants, and above all the Eiffel Tower.
Another completely new world that opened up for him was the kaleidoscope of colours and forms in the works of French artists. Chagall enthusiastically reviewed their many different tendencies, having to rethink his position as an artist and decide what creative avenue he wanted to pursue. Jacob Baal-Teshuva
Chagall is about as gypsy as they come ... these pictures do more for his reputation than anything we have previously seen ... His colors sparkle with poetry ... his work is authentically Russian as a Volga boatman's song. Henry McBride, New York Sun
On his canvases we read the triumph of modernism, the breakthrough in art to an expression of inner life that ... is one of the last century’s signal legacies. At the same time Chagall was personally swept up in the horrors of European history between 1914 and 1945: world wars, revolution, ethnic persecution, the murder and exile of millions. In an age when many major artists fled reality for abstraction, he distilled his experiences of suffering and tragedy into images at once immediate, simple, and symbolic to which everyone could respond. Jackie Wullschlager
If I create from the heart, nearly everything works; if from the head, almost nothing. Marc Chagall
Is this picture the bargain of a lifetime? Or a very expensive gamble on the notorious Russian art market? Fake or Fortune? s3e3: Chagall, BBC 2014
And they [Committee] are declaring your painting is fake. ibid. Bruce
In this hive of artists, [Marc] Chagall lived like an exile before, he worked late, always alone, and received few visitors. The Adventures of Modern Art III: Paris: Capital of the World 1916-1920 III, Sky Arts 2020