The 1980s have seen a renewed surge of interest in the work of Marc Chagall, both in Europe and the United States, culminating in the major exhibition mounted jointly by the Royal Academy of Arts, London, and the Philadelphia Museum of Art. A notable feature of that exhibition was the spotlight on quotations taken from Chagall's autobiography, My Life. Chagall's My Life has established itself as a modern classic since it first appeared in English translation in 1965. The book is a lyrical and evocative account of the artist's early life, and a key work for the light it throws on the shaping of Chagall's creative genius. His literary style, playful and witty, with arabesques of fantasy that remind us of his visual imagery, is put to painterly effect in his descriptions of his childhood in the provincial Russian town of Witebsk, his early adventures, and his first meeting with Bella, who was later to become his wife. His struggle as an artist in the face of poverty and opposition was followed by his fruitful years in Paris after 1910—the city where he found fulfilment and recognition. After recalling these experiences, Chagall tells us of his return to Russia on the outbreak of the Great War, and of the despair that finally induced him to go back to France with Bella and their young daughter in 1922. 'These pages have the same meaning as a painted surface,' Chagall writes in summary. 'If there were a hiding place in my pictures I would slip them into it.' After reading My Life the watchful reader may decide that this is precisely what he has done. My Life is animated by fifty black-and-white illustrations specially interwoven with the text by Chagall.

From the Back Cover

My life was written in Moscow in 1921-1922, when Chagall was 35 years old. Although long out- of-print, it remains one of the most extraordinarily inventive and beautifully told of all autobiographies. The text is accompanied by twenty plates which Chagall prepared especially to illustrate his life story. Together, the words and pictures paint an incomparable portrait of one of the greatest painters of this century, and of the now vanished milieu which inspired him.

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