Auktion 277 : Marc Chagall - Forty Paintings 17.06.2022

In the autumn of 1909 he met Bella Rosenfeld, the daughter of a rich jeweller. She became Chagall’s first great love and the two married in 1915. From 1911 to 1914 Chagall resided in Paris, the centre of modern art, where he befriended the Fauvists, Cubists and Orphists, who inspired him profoundly. In addition to his painter friends, Chagall was also influenced by writers such as Max Jacob, Blaise Cendrars and Guillaume Apollinaire. Chagall’s first solo exhibition with 40 paintings and 160 drawings took place at the gallery Der Sturm, Berlin, in 1914. When World War I broke out, Chagall returned to Russia. In 1918 he was appointed Commissar of art for the province of Vitebsk. In this capacity, he promoted the production and presentation of art in the region by founding museums and art schools. In 1920, due to the conflict regarding the influence of Suprematism of Malevitch and Lissitzky, Chagall left Vitebsk for Moscow, where he found work as a set and costume designer at the Jewish Theatre. As the rift between the official Soviet view on art and his personal perspective on it grew, Chagall left Russia in 1922 and moved to Berlin with Bella and his daughter Ida, who was born in 1916. Marc Chagall, Ambroise Vollard, Ida and Bella Chagall (from left to right), Paris, ca. 1923