Marc Chagall
Chagall was born in Vitebsk in Russia in 1887; he attended an art school in St Petersburg, before moving to Paris in 1910. Throughout his career Chagall produced works which were poetic, lyrical, and full of emotion. They are informed by his Jewish background, and his love of Belarusian Folklore. There is a fantastical element to his works, combining the world of the imaginary and the world of reality.
Chagall was a masterful printmaker, his techniques included etching, lithography and woodcut. He began producing prints early in his career from 1922, and it was in the late 1940s that lithography became essential to his art. His colour lithographs are amongst his most vividly beautiful work, in them, he achieved a free, painterly effect:
"When I held a lithographic stone or a copperplate in my hand I thought I was touching a talisman. It seemed to me that I could put all my joys and sorrows in it....Everything that touched my life through the years, births, deaths, weddings, flowers, animals, birds, the poor workers, my parents, lovers in the night, the biblical prophets, on the street, at home, in the temple and in heaven. And as I grew older, the tragedy of life within us and around us." Marc Chagall
As many of his works in lithography were created late in his career they display the rich and personal iconography which Chagall developed over a lifetime.
