Marc Chagall Russian-French, 1887-1985

Born in Belarus in 1887, Marc Chagall grew up in the city of Vitebsk. Interested in art from an early age, he attended the Imperial Society for the Protection of the Arts in St Petersburg, and in 1910 was awarded a scholarship to study in Paris. There he created some of his most well-known pieces, fusing dreamlike elements and folk art with the popular fauvist, orphist and cubists trends of the time. He exhibited at the Paris salons in 1912, and had his first solo show in Berlin two years later.

In 1914, Chagall visited his family and was forced to remain there by the start of WWI. He managed to return to France in 1923, but the outbreak of WWII caused him to seek asylum in America. Whilst there, he became involved with set and costume design, eventually settling in France in 1948. In his later years, he experimented with new art forms and was commissioned to produce numerous large-scale works.

Chagall died in Saint-Paul-de-Vence, France, in 1985.