Marc Chagall

Born in Vitebsk, in present-day Belarus, Chagall carried the imagery of Hasidic village life — fiddlers, lovers, floating figures, animals — through every displacement of a long century. Paris, revolutionary Russia, exile in New York, and finally the south of France.

He refused both cubist rigour and surrealist theory while borrowing from each, holding instead to colour and to memory. His later work extended into stained glass, tapestry and the ceiling of the Paris Opera. He died in Saint-Paul-de-Vence at ninety-seven.