Marc Chagall (7th 7. 1887 - 28. 3. 1985) - Belarusian painter of Jewish origin. In 1937, he received French citizenship. Chagall's work can not fit neatly into a category of modern art. Very wide is the thematic scope of his paintings, which are strongly influenced by memories of childhood. Marc Chagall was born in a village near Ljosna Belarusian city of Vitebsk, which belonged to the Russian Tsarist empire. Although he grew up in poverty, childhood he remained fond memories and influenced him then for the whole artistic career.

In 1907, he moved to St. Petersburg (St. Petersburg), where he began studying at the Impressionists Nikolai Konstantinovich Roerich, later professionally educated by artist Leon Bakst.

In 1909, during one of returning to his native region met future wife, Bella Rosenfeld, with whom he later had a daughter, Ida. In St. Petersburg, thanks to his talent received a scholarship to study in France (1911-1914). After the October Revolution in 1917, he participated on the side of the Bolsheviks, he worked in Vitebsk region as Commissioner for Culture. With the new regime, however, increasingly diverged and in 1923 he went to Paris, having previously spent three years in Moscow.

Paris, Cubism and Fauvism intoxicated, initially poetic Chagall received a slightly disdainful respect. But when a painter from the East in 1926, held its first exhibition was unofficially dubbed as the chief representative of the Paris School. In 1937, Chagall took French citizenship. Fearing the emerging Nazism, he moved to Marseille, where he was eventually arrested by the Gestapo as a Jew. When he was at the insistence of the US consul released, did not hesitate and went to the USA. In America in the 1944 death of his beloved wife Bella, returned to France two years later.

Besides painting also dealt with sculpture, ceramics and glass paintings. He did not hesitate to continually educate lithography technique began to teach in his sixty-three years. Chagall is also regarded as one of the greatest painters of religious, spiritual legacy is evident some of his paintings.