This catalog explores the early work of Marc Chagall (1887-1985), forged as the artist was pulled between two different worlds. The book begins with Chagall’s breakthrough years in Paris, 1911 to 1914, and the paintings in which he combined his memories of Russian folk art and provincial life with the cutting-edge stylistic experiments he was exposed to through his life in the center of the Parisian avant-garde.

When World War I broke out during a visit back home, Chagall was forced to spend the next eight years in Russia. The unexpected change of circumstances prompted a phase of searching self-scrutiny in the artist’s paintings and works on paper created in and after 1914.

This volume explores Chagall’s early work in Paris and Russia, presenting a period of rapid artistic evolution and personal as well as political upheaval in the artist’s life.