CHAGALL MAKES HIS WAY TO THE NEW WORLD

During his long life, Marc Chagall was an inveterate traveller – sometimes driven by necessity or fear, sometimes by artistic wanderlust and prestigious commissions. Born in Belarus, he studied first in Saint Petersburg (1908) then Paris (1910), which was then at the height of the modernist renaissance. In 1914, back in Belarus to marry his childhood sweetheart, he was trapped in Russia for the next nine years, stymied by war and revolution, but stimulated by the excitement of the early Soviet art scene.

He struggled to make a living, however, and in 1923 escaped from Moscow to return to Paris, which was his base for the best part of the next 20 years. He travelled widely in France, sketching and painting the Côte d’Azur, Brittany coast and countryside outside Paris, but he also visited Holland, Spain, Italy and Egypt. He was inspired by the light, landscapes and history of the places he visited, especially the Holy Land, where he spent two months in 1931.

As a Jew, he was at extreme risk in France after 1940 and only just managed to escape to New York in 1941.

Once in America, he began to find real fame. In 1946, New York’s Museum of Modern Art held the first major retrospective of his work.

At the age of 61, he returned to Europe to make the Côte d’Azur his final home until his death at 97 in 1985. He never stopped travelling, however, and worked on commissions as diverse as the ceiling of the Paris Opera House, a stained glass window in Chichester Cathedral, and tapestries and mosaics for the Knesset in Tel Aviv.

All prices are per person and include travel. Prices are subject to change.

Overseas travel is currently subject to restrictions. See Page 5

Frequent flier: Chagall took commissions, such as the ‘Four Seasons’ mosaic in Chicago