Editing Marc Chagall (section)

==Art career==

===Russian Empire (1906–1910)===
In 1906, he moved to [[Saint Petersburg]], which was then the capital of the Russian Empire and the center of the country's artistic life, with famous art schools. Since Jews were not permitted into the city without an internal passport, he managed to get a temporary passport from a friend. He enrolled in a prestigious art school and studied there for two years.<ref name=Teshuva/> By 1907, he had begun painting naturalistic self-portraits and landscapes. Chagall was an active member of the irregular [[freemasonic]] lodge, the [[Grand Orient of Russia's Peoples]].<ref name="mason">
{{cite news
|url= http://freemasonry.bcy.ca/texts/russia/russian_masons.html
|title= Noteworthy members of the Grand Orient of France in Russia and the Supreme Council of the Grand Orient of Russia's People
|date= 15 October 2017
|work= Grand Lodge of British Columbia and Yukon
}}</ref> He belonged to the "Vitebsk" lodge.

Between 1908 and 1910, Chagall was a student of [[Léon Bakst]] at the Zvantseva School of Drawing and Painting. While in Saint Petersburg, he discovered experimental theater, and the work of such artists as [[Paul Gauguin]].<ref>{{Cite news|last=Boxer|first=Sarah|author-link=Sarah Boxer|date=2008-11-13|title=Chagall: The inflated stardom of a Russian artist|newspaper=[[The New York Times]]|url=https://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/15/arts/15iht-IDLEDE15.1.17802312.html |access-date=2023-01-08|url-access=subscription}}</ref> Bakst, also Jewish, was a designer of decorative art and was famous as a draftsman designer of stage sets and costumes for the [[Ballets Russes]], and helped Chagall by acting as a role model for Jewish success. Bakst moved to Paris a year later. Art historian Raymond Cogniat writes that after living and studying art on his own for four years, "Chagall entered into the mainstream of contemporary art. ...His apprenticeship over, Russia had played a memorable initial role in his life."<ref name=Cogniat>Cogniat, Raymond. ''Chagall'', Crown Publishers, Inc. (1978)</ref>{{rp|30}}

Chagall stayed in Saint Petersburg until 1910, often visiting Vitebsk where he met [[Bella Rosenfeld]]. In ''My Life'', Chagall described his first meeting her: "Her silence is mine, her eyes mine. It is as if she knows everything about my childhood, my present, my future, as if she can see right through me."<ref name=Teshuva/>{{rp|22}} Bella later wrote, of meeting him, "When you did catch a glimpse of his eyes, they were as blue as if they'd fallen straight out of the sky. They were strange eyes … long, almond-shaped … and each seemed to sail along by itself, like a little boat."<ref>{{Cite web|title=The Flying Lovers, Bella and Marc Chagall|url=https://www.dailyartmagazine.com/bella-and-marc-chagall/|last=Michalska|first=Magda|date=17 February 2018|website=DailyArtMagazine.com – Art History Stories|language=en-US|access-date=7 May 2020}}</ref>

===France (1910–1914)===
[[File:Marc Chagall, 1911-12, The Drunkard (Le saoul), 1912, oil on canvas. 85 x 115 cm. Private collection.jpg|thumb|upright=1.3|Marc Chagall, 1911–12, ''The Drunkard'' (''Le saoul''), 1912, oil on canvas. 85 × 115&nbsp;cm. Private collection]]
[[File:Image-Chagall Fiddler.jpg|thumb|Marc Chagall, 1912, ''The Fiddler'', an inspiration for the musical ''[[Fiddler on the Roof]]''<ref>Several of Chagall's paintings inspired the musical; contrary to popular belief, the "title of the musical does not refer to any specific painting". {{Cite news|last=Wecker|first=Menachem|date=2014-10-24|title=Marc Chagall: The French painter who inspired the title ''Fiddler on the Roof''|newspaper=[[The Washington Post]]|url=https://www.washingtonpost.com/entertainment/theater_dance/marc-chagall-the-french-painter-who-inspired-the-title-fiddler-on-the-roof/2014/10/23/0230b382-5480-11e4-ba4b-f6333e2c0453_story.html|access-date=2023-01-08}}</ref>]] In 1910, Chagall relocated to Paris to develop his artistic style. Art historian and curator James Sweeney notes that when Chagall first arrived in Paris, Cubism was the dominant art form, and French art was still dominated by the "materialistic outlook of the 19th century". But Chagall arrived from Russia with "a ripe color gift, a fresh, unashamed response to sentiment, a feeling for simple poetry and a sense of humor", he adds. These notions were alien to Paris at that time, and as a result, his first recognition came not from other painters but from poets such as [[Blaise Cendrars]] and [[Guillaume Apollinaire]].<ref name=Sweeney>Sweeney, James J. ''Marc Chagall'', The Museum of Modern Art (1946, 1969)</ref>{{rp|7}} Art historian [[Jean Leymarie (art historian)|Jean Leymarie]] observes that Chagall began thinking of art as "emerging from the internal being outward, from the seen object to the psychic outpouring", which was the reverse of the Cubist way of creating.<ref name=Leymarie>Leymarie, Jean. ''The Jerusalem Windows'', George Braziller (1967)</ref>

He therefore developed friendships with [[Guillaume Apollinaire]] and other [[avant-garde]] artists including [[Robert Delaunay]] and [[Fernand Léger]].<ref>{{Cite news|url=https://www.britannica.com/biography/Marc-Chagall|title=Marc Chagall {{!}} Russian-French artist|work=Encyclopædia Britannica|access-date=22 August 2017|language=en}}</ref> Baal-Teshuva writes that "Chagall's dream of Paris, the city of light and above all, of freedom, had come true."<ref name=Teshuva/>{{rp|33}} His first days were a hardship for the 23-year-old Chagall, who was lonely in the big city and unable to speak French. Some days he "felt like fleeing back to Russia, as he daydreamed while he painted, about the riches of [[Slavic folklore]], his [[Hasidic]] experiences, his family, and especially Bella".

In Paris, he enrolled at [[Académie de La Palette]], an [[avant-garde]] school of art where the painters [[Jean Metzinger]], [[André Dunoyer de Segonzac]] and [[Henri Le Fauconnier]] taught, and also found work at another academy. He would spend his free hours visiting galleries and salons, especially the [[Louvre]]; artists he came to admire included [[Rembrandt]], the [[Le Nain]] brothers, [[Jean Siméon Chardin|Chardin]], [[Vincent van Gogh|van Gogh]], [[Pierre-Auguste Renoir|Renoir]], [[Camille Pissarro|Pissarro]], [[Henri Matisse|Matisse]], [[Paul Gauguin|Gauguin]], [[Gustave Courbet|Courbet]], [[Jean-François Millet|Millet]], [[Édouard Manet|Manet]], [[Claude Monet|Monet]], [[Eugène Delacroix|Delacroix]], and others. It was in Paris that he learned the technique of [[gouache]], which he used to paint Belarusian scenes. He also visited [[Montmartre]] and the [[Latin Quarter]] "and was happy just breathing Parisian air".<ref name=Teshuva/> Baal-Teshuva describes this new phase in Chagall's artistic development:

{{quote|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 colors 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.<ref name=Teshuva/>{{rp|33}}}}

[[File:Marc Chagall, 1912, Le Marchand de bestiaux (The Drover, The Cattle Dealer), oil on canvas, 97.1 x 202.5 cm, Kunstmuseum Basel.jpg|thumb|upright=1.6|Marc Chagall, 1912, ''Le Marchand de bestiaux'' (''The Drover, The Cattle Dealer''), oil on canvas, 97.1 x 202.5&nbsp;cm, [[Kunstmuseum Basel]]]]
During his time in Paris, Chagall was constantly reminded of his home in [[Vitebsk]], as Paris was also home to many painters, writers, poets, composers, dancers, and other émigrés from the Russian Empire. However, "night after night he painted until dawn", only then going to bed for a few hours, and resisted the many temptations of the big city at night.<ref name=Teshuva/>{{rp|44}} "My homeland exists only in my soul", he once said.<ref name=Leymarie/>{{rp|viii}} He continued painting Jewish motifs and subjects from his memories of Vitebsk, although he included Parisian scenes — the Eiffel Tower in particular, along with portraits. Many of his works were updated versions of paintings he had made in Russia, transposed into [[Fauvism|Fauvist]] or [[Cubism|Cubist]] keys.<ref name=Lewis/>

[[File:Marc Chagall, 1912, still-life (Nature morte), oil on canvas, private collection.jpg|thumb|Marc Chagall, 1912, ''Still-life (Nature morte)'', oil on canvas, private collection]]

Chagall developed a whole repertoire of quirky motifs: ghostly figures floating in the sky, ... the gigantic fiddler dancing on miniature dollhouses, the livestock and transparent wombs and, within them, tiny offspring sleeping upside down.<ref name=Lewis/> The majority of his scenes of life in Vitebsk were painted while living in Paris, and "in a sense they were dreams", notes Lewis. Their "undertone of yearning and loss", with a detached and abstract appearance, caused Apollinaire to be "struck by this quality", calling them "surnaturel!" His "animal/human hybrids and airborne phantoms" would later become a formative influence on [[Surrealism]].<ref name=Lewis/> Chagall, however, did not want his work to be associated with any school or movement and considered his own personal language of symbols to be meaningful to himself. But Sweeney notes that others often still associate his work with "illogical and fantastic painting", especially when he uses "curious representational juxtapositions".<ref name=Sweeney/>{{rp|10}}

Sweeney writes that "This is Chagall's contribution to contemporary art: the reawakening of a poetry of representation, avoiding factual illustration on the one hand, and non-figurative abstractions on the other". [[André Breton]] said that "with him alone, the metaphor made its triumphant return to modern painting".<ref name=Sweeney/>{{rp|7}}

===Russia (1914–1922)===
Because he missed his fiancée, Bella, who was still in Vitebsk—"He thought about her day and night", writes Baal-Teshuva—and was afraid of losing her, Chagall decided to accept an invitation from a noted art dealer in Berlin to exhibit his work, his intention being to continue on to Belarus, marry Bella, and then return with her to Paris. Chagall took 40 canvases and 160 gouaches, watercolors and drawings to be exhibited. The exhibit, held at Herwarth Walden's [[Sturm Gallery]] was a huge success, "The German critics positively sang his praises."<ref name=Teshuva/>

[[File:VitebskVKhU.jpg|thumb|right|''People's Art School'' where the Vitebsk Museum of Modern Art was situated]]
After the exhibit, he continued on to Vitebsk, where he planned to stay only long enough to marry Bella. However, after a few weeks, the First World War began, closing the Russian border for an indefinite period. A year later he married Bella Rosenfeld and they had their first child, Ida. Before the marriage, Chagall had difficulty convincing Bella's parents that he would be a suitable husband for their daughter. They were worried about her marrying a painter from a poor family and wondered how he would support her. Becoming a successful artist now became a goal and inspiration. According to Lewis, "[T]he euphoric paintings of this time, which show the young couple floating balloon-like over Vitebsk—its wooden buildings faceted in the Delaunay manner—are the most lighthearted of his career".<ref name=Lewis/> His wedding pictures were also a subject he would return to in later years as he thought about this period of his life.<ref name=Teshuva/>{{rp|75}}

[[File:Chagall Bella.jpg|thumb|upright|''[[Bella with White Collar]]'', 1917]]
In 1915, Chagall began exhibiting his work in Moscow, first exhibiting his works at a well-known salon and in 1916 exhibiting pictures in St. Petersburg. He again showed his art at a Moscow exhibition of avant-garde artists. This exposure brought recognition, and a number of wealthy collectors began buying his art. He also began illustrating a number of Yiddish books with ink drawings. He illustrated [[I. L. Peretz]]'s ''The Magician'' in 1917.<ref name="WDL">{{cite web |url = http://www.wdl.org/en/item/9615/ |title = The Magician |website = [[World Digital Library]] |year = 1917 |access-date = 30 September 2013 }}</ref> Chagall was 30 years old and had begun to become well known.<ref name=Teshuva/>{{rp|77}}

The [[October Revolution of 1917]] was a dangerous time for Chagall although it also offered opportunity. Chagall wrote he came to fear Bolshevik orders pinned on fences, writing: "The factories were stopping. The horizons opened. Space and emptiness. No more bread. The black lettering on the morning posters made me feel sick at heart".{{sfn|Moynahan|1992|p=334}} Chagall was often hungry for days, later remembering watching "a bride, the beggars and the poor wretches weighted down with bundles", leading him to conclude that the new regime had turned the Russian Empire "upside down the way I turn my pictures".{{sfn|Moynahan|1992|p=334}} By then he was one of Imperial Russia's most distinguished artists and a member of the [[modernism|modernist]] avant-garde, which enjoyed special privileges and prestige as the "aesthetic arm of the revolution".<ref name=Lewis/> He was offered a notable position as a commissar of visual arts for the country,{{clarify|reason=BNR/SSRB/BLSSR/BSSR or RSFSR?|date=March 2013}} but preferred something less political, and instead accepted a job as commissar of arts for Vitebsk. This resulted in his founding the Vitebsk Arts College which, adds Lewis, became the "most distinguished school of art in the Soviet Union".

It obtained for its faculty some of the most important artists in the country, such as [[El Lissitzky]] and [[Kazimir Malevich]]. He also added his first teacher, [[Yehuda Pen]]. Chagall tried to create an atmosphere of a collective of independently minded artists, each with their own unique style. However, this would soon prove to be difficult as a few of the key faculty members preferred a [[Suprematist]] art of squares and circles, and disapproved of Chagall's attempt at creating "bourgeois individualism". Chagall then resigned as commissar and moved to Moscow.

In Moscow he was offered a job as stage designer for the newly formed State Jewish Chamber Theater.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://dbs.bh.org.il/luminary/chagall-marc|title=Heroes – Trailblazers of the Jewish People|website=Beit Hatfutsot|access-date=7 November 2019|archive-date=7 November 2019|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20191107102419/https://dbs.bh.org.il/luminary/chagall-marc|url-status=dead}}</ref> It was set to begin operation in early 1921 with a number of plays by [[Sholem Aleichem]]. For its opening he created a number of large background murals using techniques he learned from Bakst, his early teacher. One of the main murals was {{convert|9|ft|m}} tall by {{convert|24|ft|m}} long and included images of various lively subjects such as dancers, fiddlers, acrobats, and farm animals. One critic at the time called it "Hebrew jazz in paint". Chagall created it as a "storehouse of symbols and devices", notes Lewis.<ref name=Lewis/> The murals "constituted a landmark" in the history of the theatre, and were forerunners of his later large-scale works, including murals for the New York [[Metropolitan Opera]] and the [[Paris Opera]].<ref name=Teshuva/>{{rp|87}}

The [[First World War]] ended in 1918, but the [[Russian Civil War]] continued, and famine spread. The Chagalls found it necessary to move to a smaller, less expensive, town near Moscow, although Chagall now had to commute to Moscow daily, using crowded trains. In 1921, he worked as an art teacher along with his friend sculptor [[Isaac Itkind]] in a Jewish boys' shelter in suburban [[Malakhovka, Moscow Oblast|Malakhovka]], which housed young refugees orphaned by pogroms.<ref name=Wullschlager/>{{rp|270}} While there, he created a series of illustrations for the Yiddish poetry cycle ''Grief'' written by [[David Hofstein]], who was another teacher at the Malakhovka shelter.<ref name=Wullschlager/>{{rp|273}}

After spending the years between 1921 and 1922 living in primitive conditions, he decided to go back to France so that he could develop his art in a more comfortable country. Numerous other artists, writers, and musicians were also planning to relocate to the West. He applied for an exit visa and while waiting for its uncertain approval, wrote his autobiography, ''My Life''.<ref name=Teshuva/>{{rp|121}}

===France (1923–1941)===
[[File:Marc and Bella Chagall by Hugo Erfurth 1923.jpg|thumb|Marc and Bella Chagall by [[Hugo Erfurth]], 1923]]

In 1923, Chagall left Moscow to return to France. On his way he stopped in Berlin to recover the many pictures he had left there on exhibit ten years earlier, before the war began, but was unable to find or recover any of them. Nonetheless, after returning to Paris he again "rediscovered the free expansion and fulfillment which were so essential to him", writes Lewis. With all his early works now lost, he began trying to paint from his memories of his earliest years in Vitebsk with sketches and oil paintings.<ref name=Lewis/>

He formed a business relationship with French art dealer [[Ambroise Vollard]]. This inspired him to begin creating etchings for a series of illustrated books, including [[Nikolai Gogol|Gogol]]'s ''Dead Souls'', the Bible, and the ''[[La Fontaine's Fables]]''. These illustrations would eventually come to represent his finest printmaking efforts.<ref name=Lewis/> In 1924, he travelled to [[Brittany]] and painted ''La fenêtre sur l'[[Île-de-Bréhat]]''.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.kunsthaus.ch/en/collection/peinture-et-sculpture/moderne-classique/marc-chagall/ |title=Marc Chagall at Vereinigung Zürcher Kunstfreunde |publisher=Kunsthaus.ch |date=30 June 2008 |access-date=15 March 2012 |archive-date=23 March 2012 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120323215944/http://www.kunsthaus.ch/en/collection/peinture-et-sculpture/moderne-classique/marc-chagall/ |url-status=dead }}</ref> By 1926 he had his first exhibition in the United States at the Reinhardt gallery of New York which included about 100 works, although he did not travel to the opening. He instead stayed in France, "painting ceaselessly", notes Baal-Teshuva.<ref name=Teshuva/> It was not until 1927 that Chagall made his name in the French art world, when art critic and historian [[Maurice Raynal]] awarded him a place in his book ''Modern French Painters''. However, Raynal was still at a loss to accurately describe Chagall to his readers:

{{quote|Chagall interrogates life in the light of a refined, anxious, childlike sensibility, a slightly romantic temperament ... a blend of sadness and gaiety characteristic of a grave view of life. His imagination, his temperament, no doubt forbid a Latin severity of composition.<ref name=Wullschlager/>{{rp|314}}}}

During this period he traveled throughout France and the [[Côte d'Azur]], where he enjoyed the landscapes, colorful vegetation, the blue [[Mediterranean Sea]], and the mild weather. He made repeated trips to the countryside, taking his sketchbook.<ref name=Wullschlager/>{{rp|9}} He also visited nearby countries and later wrote about the impressions some of those travels left on him:

{{quote|I should like to recall how advantageous my travels outside France have been for me in an artistic sense—in Holland or in Spain, Italy, Egypt, Palestine, or simply in the south of France. There, in the south, for the first time in my life, I saw that rich greenness—the like of which I had never seen in my own country. In Holland I thought I discovered that familiar and throbbing light, like the light between the late afternoon and dusk. In Italy I found that peace of the museums which the sunlight brought to life. In Spain I was happy to find the inspiration of a mystical, if sometimes cruel, past, to find the song of its sky and of its people. And in the East [Palestine] I found unexpectedly the Bible and a part of my very being.<ref name=Harshav/>{{rp|77}}}}

====''The Bible'' illustrations====
After returning to Paris from one of his trips, Vollard commissioned Chagall to illustrate the [[Old Testament]]. Although he could have completed the project in France, he used the assignment as an excuse to travel to [[Mandatory Palestine]] to experience for himself the [[Holy Land]]. In 1931 Marc Chagall and his family traveled to Tel Aviv on the invitation of [[Meir Dizengoff]]. Dizengoff had previously encouraged Chagall to visit Tel Aviv in connection with Dizengoff's plan to build a Jewish Art Museum in the new city. Chagall and his family were invited to stay at Dizengoff's house in Tel Aviv, which later became Independence Hall of the [[State of Israel]].

Chagall ended up staying in the Holy Land for two months. Chagall felt at home in Israel where many people spoke Yiddish and Russian. According to Jacob Baal-Teshuva, "he was impressed by the pioneering spirit of the people in the [[kibbutz]]im and deeply moved by the [[Wailing Wall]] and the other holy places".<ref name=Teshuva/>{{rp|133}}

Chagall later told a friend that Palestine gave him "the most vivid impression he had ever received". Wullschlager notes, however, that whereas Delacroix and Matisse had found inspiration in the exoticism of North Africa, he as a Jew in Palestine had different perspective. "What he was really searching for there was not external stimulus but an inner authorization from the land of his ancestors, to plunge into his work on the Bible illustrations".<ref name=Wullschlager/>{{rp|343}} Chagall stated that "In the East I found the Bible and part of my own being."

As a result, he immersed himself in "the history of the Jews, their trials, prophecies, and disasters", notes Wullschlager. She adds that beginning the assignment was an "extraordinary risk" for Chagall, as he had finally become well known as a leading contemporary painter, but would now end his modernist themes and delve into "an ancient past".<ref name=Wullschlager/>{{rp|350}} Between 1931 and 1934 he worked "obsessively" on "The Bible", even going to [[Amsterdam]] in order to carefully study the biblical paintings of [[Rembrandt]] and [[El Greco]], to see the extremes of religious painting. He walked the streets of the city's Jewish quarter to again feel the earlier atmosphere. He told Franz Meyer:

{{quote|I did not see the Bible, I dreamed it. Ever since early childhood, I have been captivated by the Bible. It has always seemed to me and still seems today the greatest source of poetry of all time.<ref name=Wullschlager/>{{rp|350}}}}

Chagall saw the [[Old Testament]] as a "human story, ... not with the creation of the cosmos but with the creation of man, and his figures of angels are rhymed or combined with human ones", writes Wullschlager. She points out that in one of his early Bible images, "Abraham and the Three Angels", the angels sit and chat over a glass of wine "as if they have just dropped by for dinner".<ref name=Wullschlager/>{{rp|350}}

He returned to France and by the next year had completed 32 out of the total of 105 plates. By 1939, at the beginning of World War II, he had finished 66. However, Vollard died that same year. When the series was completed in 1956, it was published by Edition [[Tériade]]. Baal-Teshuva writes that "the illustrations were stunning and met with great acclaim. Once again Chagall had shown himself to be one of the 20th century's most important graphic artists".<ref name=Teshuva/>{{rp|135}} Leymarie has described these drawings by Chagall as "monumental" and,

{{quote|...full of divine inspiration, which retrace the legendary destiny and the epic history of Israel to Genesis to the Prophets, through the Patriarchs and the Heroes. Each picture becomes one with the event, informing the text with a solemn intimacy unknown since Rembrandt.<ref name=Leymarie/>{{rp|ix}}}}

====Nazi campaigns against modern art====
Not long after Chagall began his work on the ''Bible'', [[Adolf Hitler]] gained power in Germany. Anti-Semitic laws were being introduced and the first concentration camp at [[Dachau concentration camp|Dachau]] had been established. Wullschlager describes the early effects on art:

{{quote|The Nazis had begun their campaign against modernist art as soon as they seized power. Expressionist, cubist, abstract, and surrealist art—anything intellectual, Jewish, foreign, socialist-inspired, or difficult to understand—was targeted, from Picasso and Matisse going back to Cézanne and van Gogh; in its place traditional German realism, accessible and open to patriotic interpretation, was extolled.<ref name=Wullschlager/>{{rp|374}}}}

Beginning during 1937 about twenty thousand works from German museums were confiscated as "degenerate" by a committee directed by [[Joseph Goebbels]].<ref name=Wullschlager/>{{rp|375}} Although the German press had once "swooned over him", the new German authorities now made a mockery of Chagall's art, describing them as "green, purple, and red Jews shooting out of the earth, fiddling on violins, flying through the air ... representing [an] assault on Western civilization".<ref name=Wullschlager/>{{rp|376}}

After Germany invaded and occupied France, the Chagalls remained in [[Vichy France]], unaware that French Jews, with the help of the [[Vichy government]], were being collected and sent to German concentration camps, from which few would return. The Vichy collaborationist government, directed by Marshal [[Philippe Pétain]], immediately upon assuming power established a commission to "redefine French citizenship" with the aim of stripping "undesirables", including naturalized citizens, of their French nationality. Chagall had been so involved with his art, that it was not until October 1940, after the Vichy government, at the behest of the Nazi occupying forces, began approving anti-Semitic laws, that he began to understand what was happening. Learning that Jews were being removed from public and academic positions, the Chagalls finally "woke up to the danger they faced". But Wullschlager notes that "by then they were trapped".<ref name=Wullschlager/>{{rp|382}} Their only refuge could be the US, but "they could not afford the passage to New York" or the large bond that each immigrant had to provide upon entry to ensure that they would not become a financial burden to the country.

====Escaping occupied France====
According to Wullschlager, "[T]he speed with which France collapsed astonished everyone: the [British-supported French army] capitulated even more quickly than Poland had done" a year earlier. Shock waves crossed the Atlantic... as Paris had until then been equated with civilization throughout the non-Nazi world."<ref name=Wullschlager/>{{rp|388}} Yet the attachment of the Chagalls to France "blinded them to the urgency of the situation."<ref name=Wullschlager/>{{rp|389}} Many other well-known Russian and Jewish artists eventually sought to escape: these included [[Chaïm Soutine]], [[Max Ernst]], [[Max Beckmann]], [[Ludwig Fulda]], author [[Victor Serge]] and prize-winning author [[Vladimir Nabokov]], who although not Jewish himself, was married to a Jewish woman.<ref>Shrayer, Maxim. ''An anthology of Jewish-Russian literature – vol 1'', M.E. Sharpe (2007)</ref>{{rp|1181}} Russian author Victor Serge described many of the people living temporarily in [[Marseille]] who were waiting to emigrate to the US:

{{quote|Here is a beggar's alley gathering the remnants of revolutions, democracies and crushed intellects... In our ranks are enough doctors, psychologists, engineers, educationalists, poets, painters, writers, musicians, economists and public men to vitalize a whole great country.<ref name=Wullschlager/>{{rp|392}}}}

After prodding by their daughter Ida, who "perceived the need to act fast",<ref name=Wullschlager/>{{rp|388}} and with help from [[Alfred Barr]] of the [[New York Museum of Modern Art]], Chagall was saved by having his name added to the list of prominent artists whose lives were at risk and who the United States should try to extricate. [[Varian Fry]], the US journalist, and [[Hiram Bingham IV]], the US Vice-Consul in Marseilles, ran a rescue operation to smuggle artists and intellectuals out of Europe to the US by providing them with forged visas to the US. In April 1941, Chagall and his wife were stripped of their French citizenship. The Chagalls stayed at the Hotel Moderne in Marseille where they were arrested along with other Jews. Varian Fry managed to pressure the French police to release him, threatening them of scandal.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Fry |first=Varian |url=https://archive.org/details/assignmentrescue00fryv/page/163/mode/1up?view=theater |title=Assignment: Rescue: An Autobiography |date=1992 |publisher=New York : Scholastic |others=Internet Archive |isbn=978-0-590-46970-8
|page=163}} The book was originally [https://books.google.com/books?id=BPMXAAAAMAAJ&dq=surrender+on+demand+by+varian+fry&pg=PA2434 published by Random House in 1945 by Varian Fry] under the title ''Surrender on Demand''.</ref><ref>{{Cite book|title=Marc Chagall and His Times: A Documentary Narrative|last=Harshav|first=Benjamin|publisher=Stanford University Press|year=2004|pages=497}}</ref> Chagall was one of over 2,000 who were rescued by this operation. He left France in May 1941, "when it was almost too late", adds Lewis. [[Picasso]] and [[Matisse]] were also invited to come to the US but they decided to remain in France. On 10 June 1941 Chagall and Bella left [[Port of Lisbon|Lisbon]] aboard the Portuguese ship ''[[SS Corcovado|Mouzinho]]''. The passengers included 119 refugee children, to whom Chagall gave drawing lessons on the voyage.<ref>{{cite news |url= https://www.jta.org/archive/ship-with-700-refugees-including-130-children-leaves-lisbon-for-new-york |title=Ship with 700 Refugees, Including 130 Children, Leaves Lisbon for New York |date=12 June 1941 |publisher=[[Jewish Telegraphic Agency]] |access-date=29 February 2024}}</ref> The ship reached [[Staten Island]] on 21 June,<ref>{{cite news |title=119 child refugees here from Lisbon |url-access=subscription |newspaper=The New York Times |date=22 June 1941 |page=19 |access-date=29 February 2024 |via=Times Machine |url= https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1941/06/22/87630694.html?pageNumber=19}}</ref> the day before Germany invaded the Soviet Union. Ida and her husband Michel followed on the notorious refugee ship {{SS|Navemar||2}} with a large case of Chagall's work.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.museothyssen.org/en/thyssen/contenidos_articulo/7 |title=El Museo de arte Thyssen-Bornemisza – (Paseo del Prado, 8, Madrid-España) |publisher=Museothyssen.org |access-date=15 March 2012 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120312062326/http://www.museothyssen.org/en/thyssen/contenidos_articulo/7 |archive-date=12 March 2012}}</ref> A chance post-war meeting in a French café between Ida and intelligence analyst [[Konrad Kellen]] led to Kellen carrying more paintings on his return to the United States.<ref name=bbcvp>{{cite news|url=https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-23037957|title=Viewpoint: Could one man have shortened the Vietnam War?|date=8 July 2013 |work=[[BBC News]] |access-date=9 July 2013}}</ref>

===United States (1941–1948)===
[[File:Portrait of Marc Chagall, 1941.jpg|thumb|upright|Photo portrait of Chagall in 1941 by [[Carl Van Vechten]]]]
Even before arriving in the United States in 1941, Chagall was awarded the [[Carnegie Prize]] third prize in 1939 for ''"Les Fiancés"''. After being in the US he discovered that he had already achieved "international stature", writes Cogniat, although he felt ill-suited in this new role in a foreign country whose language he could not yet speak. He became a celebrity mostly against his will, feeling lost in the strange surroundings.<ref name=Cogniat/>{{rp|57}}

After a while he began to settle in New York, which was full of writers, painters, and composers who, like himself, had fled from Europe during the Nazi invasions. He lived at 4 [[East 74th Street]].<ref name="nytimes2000">{{cite news|url=https://www.nytimes.com/2000/11/16/garden/big-deal-an-old-chagall-haunt-repainted.html |first=Tracie |last=Rozhon |title=BIG DEAL; An Old Chagall Haunt, Repainted |newspaper=The New York Times|date=16 November 2000 |access-date=10 April 2013}}</ref> He spent time visiting galleries and museums, and befriended other artists including [[Piet Mondrian]] and [[André Breton]].<ref name=Teshuva/>{{rp|155}}

Baal-Teshuva writes that Chagall "loved" going to the sections of New York where Jews lived, especially the [[Lower East Side]]. There he felt at home, enjoying the Jewish foods and being able to read the Yiddish press, which became his main source of information since he did not yet speak English.<ref name=Teshuva/>

Contemporary artists did not yet understand or even like Chagall's art. According to Baal-Teshuva, "they had little in common with a folkloristic storyteller of Russo-Jewish extraction with a propensity for mysticism." The Paris School, which was referred to as 'Parisian Surrealism', meant little to them.<ref name=Teshuva/>{{rp|155}} Those attitudes would begin to change, however, when [[Pierre Matisse]], the son of recognized French artist [[Henri Matisse]], became his representative and managed Chagall exhibitions in New York and Chicago in 1941. One of the earliest exhibitions included 21 of his masterpieces from 1910 to 1941.<ref name=Teshuva/> Art critic [[Henry McBride (art critic)|Henry McBride]] wrote about this exhibit for the ''New York Sun'':

{{quote|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...<ref>McBride, Henry. ''New York Sun'', 28 Nov. 1941</ref>}}

====''Aleko'' ballet (1942)====
He was offered a commission by choreographer [[Léonide Massine]] of the [[Ballet Theatre of New York]] to design the sets and costumes for his new ballet, ''Aleko''. This ballet would stage the words of [[Alexander Pushkin]]'s verse narrative ''[[The Gypsies (poem)|The Gypsies]]'' with the music of [[Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky|Tchaikovsky]]. The ballet was originally planned for a New York debut, but as a cost-saving measure it was moved to Mexico where labor costs were cheaper than in New York. While Chagall had done stage settings before while in Russia, this was his first ballet, and it would give him the opportunity to visit Mexico. While there, he quickly began to appreciate the "primitive ways and colorful art of the Mexicans", notes Cogniat. He found "something very closely related to his own nature", and did all the color detail for the sets while there.<ref name=Cogniat/> Eventually, he created four large backdrops and had Mexican seamstresses sew the ballet costumes.

When the ballet premiered at the [[Palacio de Bellas Artes]] in Mexico City on 8 September 1942 it was considered a "remarkable success".<ref name=Teshuva/> In the audience were other famous mural painters who came to see Chagall's work, including [[Diego Rivera]] and [[José Clemente Orozco]]. According to Baal-Teshuva, when the final bar of music ended, "there was a tumultuous applause and 19 curtain calls, with Chagall himself being called back onto the stage again and again." The production then moved to New York, where it was presented four weeks later at the [[Metropolitan Opera]] and the response was repeated, "again Chagall was the hero of the evening".<ref name=Teshuva/>{{rp|158}} Art critic [[Edwin Denby (poet)|Edwin Denby]] wrote of the opening for the ''[[New York Herald Tribune]]'' that Chagall's work:

{{quote|has turned into a dramatized exhibition of giant paintings... It surpasses anything Chagall has done on the easel scale, and it is a breathtaking experience, of a kind one hardly expects in the theatre.<ref>[[Edwin Denby (poet)|Denby, Edwin]]. ''[[New York Herald Tribune]]'', 6 October 1942</ref>}}

====Coming to grips with World War II====

After Chagall returned to New York in 1943 current events began to interest him more, and this was represented by his art, where he painted subjects including the [[Crucifixion]] and scenes of war. He learned that the Germans had destroyed the town where he was raised, Vitebsk, and became greatly distressed.<ref name=Teshuva/>{{rp|159}} He also learned about the [[Nazi concentration camps]].<ref name=Teshuva/> During a speech in February 1944, he described some of his feelings:

{{quote|Meanwhile, the enemy jokes, saying that we are a "stupid nation". He thought that when he started slaughtering the Jews, we would all in our grief suddenly raise the greatest prophetic scream, and would be joined by the Christian humanists. But, after two thousand years of "Christianity" in the world—say whatever you like—but, with few exceptions, their hearts are silent... I see the artists in Christian nations sit still—who has heard them speak up? They are not worried about themselves, and our Jewish life doesn't concern them.<ref name=Harshav/>{{rp|89}}}}

In the same speech he credited Soviet Russia with doing the most to save the Jews:

{{quote|The Jews will always be grateful to it. What other great country has saved a million and a half Jews from Hitler's hands, and shared its last piece of bread? What country abolished antisemitism? What other country devoted at least a piece of land as an autonomous region for Jews who want to live there? All this, and more, weighs heavily on the scales of history.<ref name=Harshav/>{{rp|89}}}}

On 2 September 1944, Bella died suddenly due to a streptococcus infection, which could not be treated at the Mercy General Hospital as they had no penicillin due to  wartime restrictions. As a result, he stopped all work for many months, and when he did resume painting his first pictures were concerned with preserving Bella's memory.<ref name=Cogniat/> Wullschlager writes of the effect on Chagall: "As news poured in through 1945 of the ongoing [[the Holocaust|Holocaust]] at [[Nazi concentration camps]], Bella took her place in Chagall's mind with the millions of Jewish victims." He even considered the possibility that their "exile from Europe had sapped her will to live".<ref name=Wullschlager/>{{rp|419}}

[[File:WithBella.jpg|thumb|With [[Virginia Haggard|Virginia Haggard McNeil]] in 1948]]

After a year of living with his daughter Ida and her husband Michel Gordey, he entered into a romance with [[Virginia Haggard]], daughter of diplomat [[Godfrey Haggard]] and great-niece of the author [[H. Rider Haggard]]; their relationship endured seven years. They had a child together, David McNeil, born 22 June 1946.<ref name=Teshuva/> Haggard recalled her "seven years of plenty" with Chagall in her book, ''My Life with Chagall'' (Robert Hale, 1986).

A few months after the Allies succeeded in liberating Paris from Nazi occupation, with the help of the Allied armies, Chagall published a letter in a Paris weekly, "To the Paris Artists":

{{quote|In recent years I have felt unhappy that I couldn't be with you, my friends. My enemy forced me to take the road of exile. On that tragic road, I lost my wife, the companion of my life, the woman who was my inspiration. I want to say to my friends in France that she joins me in this greeting, she who loved France and French art so faithfully. Her last joy was the liberation of Paris... Now, when Paris is liberated, when the art of France is resurrected, the whole world too will, once and for all, be free of the satanic enemies who wanted to annihilate not just the body but also the soul—the soul, without which there is no life, no artistic creativity.<ref name=Harshav/>{{rp|101}}}}

====Post-war years====
By 1946, his artwork was becoming more widely recognized. The [[Museum of Modern Art]] in New York had a large exhibition representing 40 years of his work which gave visitors one of the first complete impressions of the changing nature of his art over the years. The war had ended and he began making plans to return to Paris. According to Cogniat, "He found he was even more deeply attached than before, not only to the atmosphere of Paris, but to the city itself, to its houses and its views."<ref name=Cogniat/> Chagall summed up his years living in the US:

{{quote|I lived here in America during the inhuman war in which humanity deserted itself... I have seen the rhythm of life. I have seen America fighting with Allies... the wealth that she has distributed to bring relief to the people who had to suffer the consequences of the war... I like America and the Americans... people there are frank. It is a young country with the qualities and faults of youth. It is a delight to love people like that... Above all I am impressed by the greatness of this country and the freedom that it gives.<ref name=Teshuva/>{{rp|170}}}}

He went back to France for good during the autumn of 1947, where he attended the opening of the exhibition of his works at the [[Musée National d'Art Moderne]].<ref name=Cogniat/>

===France (1948–1985)===
After returning to France he traveled throughout Europe and chose to live in the [[Côte d'Azur]] which by that time had become somewhat of an "artistic centre". [[Matisse]] lived near [[Saint-Paul-de-Vence]], about seven miles west of [[Nice]], while [[Picasso]] lived in [[Vallauris]]. Although they lived nearby and sometimes worked together, there was artistic rivalry between them as their work was so distinctly different, and they never became long-term friends. According to Picasso's mistress, [[Françoise Gilot]], Picasso still had a great deal of respect for Chagall, and once told her,

{{quote|When Matisse dies, Chagall will be the only painter left who understands what color is... His canvases are really painted, not just tossed together. Some of the last things he's done in Vence convince me that there's never been anybody since [[Renoir]] who has the feeling for light that Chagall has."<ref>Gilot, Françoise. ''Life with Picasso'', Anchor Books (1989) p. 282</ref>}}

In April 1952, Virginia Haggard left Chagall for the photographer Charles Leirens; she went on to become a professional photographer herself.

[[File:Vava Brodsky and Marc Chagall 1967.jpg|thumb|Vava Brodsky and Marc Chagall in 1967]]
Chagall's daughter Ida married art historian Franz Meyer in January 1952, and feeling that her father missed the companionship of a woman in his home, introduced him to Valentina (Vava) Brodsky, a woman from a similar Russian Jewish background, who had run a successful millinery business in London. She became his secretary, and after a few months agreed to stay only if Chagall married her. The marriage took place in July 1952<ref name=Teshuva/>{{rp|183}}—though six years later, when there was conflict between Ida and Vava, "Marc and Vava divorced and immediately remarried under an agreement more favourable to Vava" ([[Jean-Paul Crespelle]], author of ''Chagall, l'Amour le Reve et la Vie'', quoted in ''Haggard: My Life with Chagall'').

In 1954, he was engaged as set decorator for [[Robert Helpmann]]'s production of [[Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov|Rimsky-Korsakov]]'s opera ''[[The Golden Cockerel|Le Coq d'Or]]'' at the [[Royal Opera House, Covent Garden]], but he withdrew. The Australian designer [[Loudon Sainthill]] was drafted at short notice in his place.<ref>{{Citation|last=O'Neill|first=Sally|title=Sainthill, Loudon (1918–1969)|url=https://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/sainthill-loudon-11602|work=Australian Dictionary of Biography|place=Canberra|publisher=National Centre of Biography, Australian National University|language=en|access-date=2023-01-08}}</ref>

In the years ahead he was able to produce not just paintings and graphic art, but also numerous sculptures and ceramics, including wall tiles, painted vases, plates and jugs. He also began working in larger-scale formats, producing large murals, stained glass windows, mosaics and tapestries.<ref name=Teshuva/>

====Ceiling of the Paris Opera (1963)====

In 1963, Chagall was commissioned to paint the new ceiling for the Paris Opera ([[Palais Garnier]]), a majestic 19th-century building and national monument. [[André Malraux]], France's Minister of Culture wanted something unique and decided Chagall would be the ideal artist. However, this choice of artist caused controversy: some objected to having a Russian Jew decorate a French national monument; others disliked the ceiling of the historic building being painted by a modern artist. Some magazines wrote condescending articles about Chagall and Malraux, about which Chagall commented to one writer:

{{quote|They really had it in for me... It is amazing the way the French resent foreigners. You live here most of your life. You become a naturalized French citizen... work for nothing decorating their cathedrals, and still they despise you. You are not one of them.<ref name=Teshuva/>{{rp|196}} }}

Nonetheless, Chagall continued the project, which took the 77-year-old artist a year to complete. The final canvas was nearly 2,400 square feet (220 sq. meters) and required {{convert|440|lb|kg}} of paint. It had five sections which were glued to polyester panels and hoisted up to the {{convert|70|ft|m|adj=on}} ceiling. The images Chagall painted on the canvas paid tribute to the composers [[Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart|Mozart]], [[Richard Wagner|Wagner]], [[Modest Mussorgsky|Mussorgsky]], [[Hector Berlioz|Berlioz]] and [[Maurice Ravel|Ravel]], as well as to famous actors and dancers.<ref name=Teshuva/>{{rp|199}}

It was presented to the public on 23 September 1964 in the presence of Malraux and 2,100 invited guests. The Paris correspondent for the ''New York Times'' wrote, "For once the best seats were in the uppermost circle:<ref name=Teshuva/>{{rp|199}} Baal-Teshuva writes:

{{quote|To begin with, the big crystal chandelier hanging from the centre of the ceiling was unlit... the entire ''[[corps de ballet]]'' came onto the stage, after which, in Chagall's honour, the opera's orchestra played the finale of the "[[Symphony No. 41 (Mozart)|Jupiter Symphony]]" by Mozart, Chagall's favorite composer. During the last bars of the music, the chandelier lit up, bringing the artist's ceiling painting to life in all its glory, drawing rapturous applause from the audience.<ref name=Teshuva/>{{rp|199}} }}

After the new ceiling was unveiled, "even the bitterest opponents of the commission seemed to fall silent", writes Baal-Teshuva. "Unanimously, the press declared Chagall's new work to be a great contribution to French culture." Malraux later said, "What other living artist could have painted the ceiling of the Paris Opera in the way Chagall did?... He is above all one of the great colourists of our time... many of his canvases and the Opera ceiling represent sublime images that rank among the finest poetry of our time, just as [[Titian]] produced the finest poetry of his day."<ref name=Teshuva/>{{rp|199}} In Chagall's speech to the audience he explained the meaning of the work:

{{quote|Up there in my painting I wanted to reflect, like a mirror in a bouquet, the dreams and creations of the singers and musicians, to recall the movement of the colourfully attired audience below, and to honour the great opera and ballet composers... Now I offer this work as a gift of gratitude to France and her [[École de Paris]], without which there would be no colour and no freedom.<ref name=Harshav/>{{rp|151}} }}