“The soil that nourished the roots of my art was Vitebsk.”
Marc Chagall created a unique career in virtually every
artistic medium, including paintings, book illustrations, stained glass, stage sets,
ceramics, tapestries and fine art prints. Chagall's haunting, exuberant, and poetic
images have enjoyed universal appeal, with art critic Robert Hughes referring to
him as "the quintessential Jewish artist of the twentieth century."
As a pioneer of modernism and one of the greatest figurative artists of the
twentieth century, Marc Chagall achieved fame and fortune, and over the course
of a long career created some of the best-known paintings of our time. According
to art historian Michael J. Lewis, Chagall was considered to be "the last survivor
of the first generation of European modernists." For decades he "had also been
respected as the world's preeminent Jewish artist." Using the medium of stained glass,
he produced windows for the cathedrals of Reims and Metz, windows for the United Nations,
and the Jerusalem Windows in Israel. He also did large-scale paintings, including the
ceiling for the Paris Opera.
