Chagall

October 20, 2008
This thorough exploration of celebrated postmodernist painter Chagall begins with his 1887 birth in Vitebsk, a small Jewish town in Russia that he would repeatedly return to, both literally and artistically. He immigrated to Paris in 1911, where he soaked up Impressionism and identified immediately with Gauguin and Picasso's Cubism. Returning to Vitebsk in 1914, moments before the beginning of the Russian Revolution, Chagall was initially prized by the Bolsheviks, who wanted to put him in charge of the visual arts department in the Soviet education agency. Chagall declined, helping instead to establish the Vitebsk People's Art College, but the Bolshevik obsession with "peasant art" and the increasingly ominous political climate sent Chagall, along with his wife Thea and daughter Ida, back to Paris. Though the move proved to be Chagall's big break, the transformation of Vitebsk and general ruin of Russia weighed heavily on him. Chagall's life, talent and times are documented meticulously by biographer Wullschlager (author of 2001's Hans Christian Andersen), producing a complete portrait of an inspiring, complicated artist who merged French and Russian sensibilities, invoked "the concrete village disposition... of Vitebsk and the global cosmic one of Russian abstraction," and suffered as both victim and survivor of Fascism's first wave. 32 pages color illustrations, 155 b&w illustrations.

November 15, 2008
Born Moishe Shagal in 1887 into a family of Hasidic Jews in the town of Vitebsk (in present-day Belarus), Marc Chagall (the name he chose when he struck out for the Paris art world) was a pioneer of modern art who lived through czarist pogroms, the Russian Revolution, two world wars, and the birth of the state of Israel. His paintings, drawings, illustrations, stage sets, tapestries, and stained glass windows can be found everywhere from the Guggenheim Museum in New York to the Paris Opéra to the synagogue at the Hadassah Medical Center in Jerusalem. Chagall gave us his account in his 1960 memoir (translated from the French as "My Life") and collaborated with his son-in-law Franz Meyer on "Marc Chagall: Life and Work". Chagall's granddaughter gave Wullschlager, art critic for the "Financial Times", access to the Archives Marc et Ida Chagall and its extensive collection of letters and papers hitherto unseen by scholars. The result is a fascinating new look at the man, his art, and his times. Highly recommended for all art collections.Marcia Welsh, Dartmouth Coll. Libs., Hanover, NH

Copyright 2008 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

Starred review from September 15, 2008
Much has been written about Chagall, one of the worlds best-known artists alongside Matisse and Picasso, yet many facets of his complex and emblematic life remain unexamined. Wullschlager, author of a celebrated biography of Hans Christian Andersen and art critic for the Financial Times, brings fresh information and interpretation to this grandly detailed and consistently discerning portrait of an artist exiled several times over. Born Moyshe Shagal in 1887 to a Hasidic couple in Vitebsk, Russia, he was his mothers favorite, and Wullschlagers attention to the loving and supportive women Chagall depended on, from his resourceful mother to gifted Bella, the great love of his life; their loyal daughter, Ida; and Vava, the wife of his later years, is one salient aspect of this sensitive biography. Another is Wullschlagers keen understanding of how place and displacement shaped Chagalls artistic evolution as war, revolution, and genocidal anti-Semitism forced the artist and his family to flee their homes in Russia and France. From Chagalls mythologizedand enchanting vision of the lost world of Vitebsk and Jewish mysticism to his defiant vitality and celebratory humanism, his tireless improvisation on figurative and religious traditions, and endless struggles for recognition and transcendence of the horrors of his time, Wullschlager masterfully depicts Chagall as an artist with a profoundyearning for continuity, devotion to remembrance, and faith in beauty.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2008, American Library Association.)