7 July 1887: Marc Zakharovich Chagall, the son of a fish vendor, was born in Vitebsk.

      1906: Studied at the art school of Yuri Pen in Vitebsk, leaving for St. Petersburg in the winter.

      1907–1910: Studied at the Drawing School of the Society for the Encouragement of the Arts, St. Petersburg (then directed by Nicholas Roerich) and the private school of S. Saidenberg; entered the private art school of Yelizaveta Zvantseva, where he studied under Léon Bakst and Matislav Dobuzhinsky. Showed his works at the school exhibition held in the office of the magazine Apollon.

      1910–1914: Lived in Paris, on the Impasse du Maine. In 1911, moved to La Ruche. Met Pablo Picasso, Georges Braque, Fernand Léger, Amedeo Modigliani, Alexander Arkhipenko, Guillaume Apollinaire, Max Jacob, Blaise Cendrars, and other famous artists and writers. Exhibited at the Salon des Independants and the Salon d’Automne in Paris, with the Donkey’s Tail group in Moscow, at Der Sturm Gallery in Berlin (first one-man show) and also in St. Petersburg and Amsterdam. On the eve of the war, returned to Vitebsk.

      July 1915: Married Bella Rosenfeld.

      1915–1917: Worked in Petrograd, served on the military-industrial committee. Exhibited in Moscow and Petrograd.

      1916: Birth of his daughter Ida.

      1918–1919: Appointed Commissar for the Arts in the Regional Department of People’s Education in Vitebsk. Set up and ran (from early 1919) an art school in Vitebsk, where the teachers included Mstislav Dobuzhinsky, Ivan Puni and Kasimir Malevich. Headed the Free Painting Workshop (Svomas) and the museum. Organized the celebrations in 1918 for the first anniversary of the October Revolution. Took part in the First State Free Exhibition held in the Winter Palace, Petrograd.

      1920–1921: Conflict with Malevich and Lissitzky forced Chagall to leave Vitebsk. He lived in and near Moscow, producing works for the Jewish Chamber Theatre and teaching in the Malakhovka and Third International colonies for homeless children. Began work on the book My Life.

      1922: Joint exhibition in Moscow with Nathan Altman and David Sterenberg.

      1922–1923: Travelled to Kaunas with an exhibition of his works. Visited Berlin and Paris. Settled in Paris in September 1923. Produced etchings for My Life and began work on illustrations to Gogol’s Dead Souls.

      1926: One-man shows in Paris and New York.

      1930–1931: Worked on illustrations for the Bible. Travelled to Switzerland, Palestine, Syria and Egypt. Exhibitions in Paris, Brussels and New York.

      1933: At Goebbels’ command, Chagall’s works were burnt in public in Mannheim. Exhibition in Basle.

      1935: Visited Poland.

      1937: Granted French citizenship. Travelled to Italy.

      1939: Carnegie Prize (USA).

      1940: Moved to the Loire and then to Provence.

      1941: Arrested in Marseille and then freed. Moved to the USA.

      1942: Worked for theatres in the USA and Mexico.

      1944: Death of Bella Chagall in New York.

      1945: Set designs and costumes for Stravinsky’s ballet The Firebird.

      1946: Exhibitions in New York and Chicago.

      1947: Exhibition at the Musée National d’Art Moderne in Paris.

      1948: Returned to France. Publication of Dead Souls with illustrations by Chagall. Exhibitions in Amsterdam and London. Travelled widely in this and the following years.

      1950: Moved to Vence, near Nice. Worked on lithographs and ceramics.

      1951: First stone sculptures. Large exhibitions in Bern and Jerusalem.

      1952: Married Valentina Brodsky. Visit to Greece.

      1953–1955: Major exhibitions in Turin, Vienna and Hanover.

      1956: Publication of the Bible with illustrations by Chagall.

      1957: Began work on stained-glass windows (for Assy, Metz, Jerusalem, New York, London, Zurich, Reims, Nice). Exhibitions of graphic works in Basle and Zurich.

      1959: Murals in the foyer of the Theatre in Frankfurt am Main. Exhibitions in Paris, Munich and Hamburg.

      1963: Exhibitions in Japan.

      1964: Ceiling paintings in the Opera in Paris. First mosaics and tapestries.

      1966: Moved to Saint-Paul-de-Vence. Painted murals in the Metropolitan Opera in New York.

      1969–1970: Foundation of the Musée Chagall in Nice. Major retrospective exhibition at the Grand Palais in Paris.

      June 1973: Trips to Moscow and Leningrad at the invitation of the USSR Ministry of Culture.

      July 1973: Opening of the Musée Chagall in Nice.

      October 1977: Exhibition of paintings produced between 1967 and 1977 in the Louvre.

      1982–1984: Major exhibitions in Stockholm, Copenhagen, Paris, Nice, Rome and Basle.

      28 March 1985: Marc Chagall died at Saint-Paul-de-Vence in the ninety-eighth year of his life.

      1987: Major exhibition of Chagall’s works in Moscow.

* * *

      Through one of those curious reversals of fate, one more exile has regained his native land. Since the exhibition of his work at the Pushkin Museum of Fine Arts in Moscow in 1987 which gave rise to an extraordinary popular fervour, Marc Chagall has experienced a second birth.

      Kermis

      1908

      Oil on canvas, 68 × 95 cm

      Wright Ludington Collection Santa Barbara (California, USA)

      Here we have a painter, perhaps the most unusual painter of the twentieth century, who at last, attained the object of his inner quest: the love of his Russia. Thus, the hope expressed in the last lines of My Life, the autobiographical narrative which the painter broke off in 1922 when he left for the West – “and perhaps Europe will love me and, along with her, my Russia” – has been fulfilled.

      My Fiancée in Black Gloves

      1909

      Oil on canvas, 88 × 65 cm

      Kunstmuseum, Basle

      A confirmation of this is provided today by the retrospective tendency in his homeland which, beyond the all-in-all natural re-absorption of the artist into the national culture, also testifies to a genuine interest, an attempt at analysis, an original viewpoint which enriches our study of Chagall.

      Self-Portrait

      1909

      Oil on canvas, 57 × 48 cm

      Kunstsammlung Nordrhein-Westfalen, Düsseldorf

      Contrary to what one might think, this study is still dogged by uncertainties in terms of historical fact. As early

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