Marc Chagall was born on July 7, 1887 in the Russian town of Vitebsk, the
eldest of the nine children of a poor Jewish family. His parents encouraged the
boy's passion for painting and in'1906 Marc became the pupil of Jehoda Pen, a
painter of the school of epic realism. A year later Chagall moved to St. Peters
burg and for a short period attended the school of the Imperial Society for Fine Arts.

The artist soon discovered he could not stand academism. After attending the study of the Russian painter Leon Bakst (1866-1924), in 1910, at the age of 23, Chagall moved to faraway Paris. In this capital of art, he came in touch with the avantgarde and Cubism whose principles he studied preferring the more
lyrical touch of Robert Delaunay (1855 -1941). Chagall also made another fundamental discovery: the joyous intense colours of Matisse (1869 -1954) and of the fauves.


While Chagall was on a short visit to Russia, World War I broke out the artist was trapped in his home country. For eight years he held important public offices and organized with enthusiasm the Vitebsk School of Arts - later to become the Suprematist Academy.

After a period of hard work and journeys to Palestine, France, Italy, Holland and Poland, in 1939 Chagall settled in France with his wife Bella Rosenfeld (married in 1915) and his daughter, Ida. His peaceful life was however soon disrupted by racist policies and in 1941 Chagall was forced to seek shelter in New York. Bella's
death in 1944 interrupted Chagall's creativity for ten months.

Back in France, the artist settled in Saint-Paul de-Vence where he married Valentina Brodskij and where he lived for the rest of his long, prolific days until his death on March 28, 1985 at the age of 96.

Chagall's wanderings provide a background to his unique, personal style which reprocesses stimuli but is never radically altered by them. Reality is transfigured and enveloped in a poetic and religious atmosphere.