Marc Chagall

Marc Chagall was a Belarusian painter of Jewish origin.
He was born in Vitebsk, Belarus, being the eldest of eight children. His birth name was Moishe Zakharovich Shagalov (Moishe Segal). His mother's name was Felga-Ita. He was one of the most important artists of surrealism and in his work can be found resonances of fantasies and dreams.
In 1907, Marc Chagall moved to Saint Petersburg where he became affiliated with the school of the Society of Art Patrons where he studied under the tutorship of Nikolai Roerich. After becoming known as an artist, he left Saint Petersburg, Russia, to join a group of artists who were in the Montparnasse neighborhood in Paris, France. In 1914 he returned to Vitebsk and married his fiancée, Bella Rosenfeld, whom he had met in 1909. As soon as World War I began, Chagall did not leave his native town and in 1915 he married Bella, and the following year they had a daughter whom they named Ida.
Chagall would become an active participant in the Russian Revolution in 1917. The Soviet Minister of Culture appointed him Commissioner of Art for the Vitebsk region where he founded an art school. However, he did not perform well within the Soviet system and thus he moved to Moscow in 1920 and later to Paris in 1923.
With the German occupation of France during World War II and the deportation of Jews to Nazi extermination camps, Marc Chagall had to leave France. With the help of an American journalist Varian Fry, he moved to the Villa Air-Bel in Marseille before Fry helped him escape from France.
Some of his most important works are "Me and the Village" (1911), "The Green Violinist" (1923-1924, Guggenheim Museum, New York), "The Birthday" (1915), "Solitude" (1933, Tel Aviv Museum). Today, a Chagall painting can sell for more than 6 million dollars. His lithographs also reach considerable value.
It is worth noting his stay on the Costa Brava, specifically in the town of Tossa de Mar, where he spent a couple of summers, those of 1933 and 1934. Currently preserved in the Municipal Museum of Tossa de Mar is the famous work titled "The Celestial Violinist".
His works can be found in the Paris Opera, the First National Bank Plaza in downtown Chicago, the Metropolitan Opera of New York, the Cathedral of Metz, France, the Fraumünster Cathedral in Zurich, Switzerland, and the Church of Saint Stephen in Mainz. The museum bearing his name in Vitebsk was founded in 1997 in the building where his family used to live. This museum only has copies of his work. During Soviet times he was considered persona non grata.
He died at the age of 98 and is buried in the Museum of the village of Saint Paul, Saint-Paul de Vence (near Nice, France).