Marc Chagall was a Russian-French artist of Belarusian Jewish origin. He was an early modernist and worked in virtually every artistic format including painting, book illustrations, stained glass, stage sets, ceramic, tapestries and fine art prints. Art critic Robert Hughes referred to Chagall as "the quintessential Jewish artist of the twentieth century and according to art historian Michael J Lewis, Chagall was considered to be “the last survivor of the first generation of European modernists”.

He had two basic reputations, writes Lewis: as a pioneer of modernism and as a major Jewish artist. He experienced modernism's "golden age" in Paris, where "he synthesized the art forms of Cubism, Symbolism, and Fauvism, and the influence of Fauvism gave rise to Surrealism". Yet throughout these phases of his style "he remained most emphatically a Jewish artist, whose work was one long dreamy reverie of life in his native village of Vitebsk.” "When Matisse dies," Pablo Picasso remarked in the 1950s, "Chagall will be the only painter left who understands what color really is".

On July 19th, Kodner Galleries will be auctioning off 3 Chagall Lithographs titled Die Zauberflote, Carmen, Danseus au Cirque, as well as an Italian Exhibition post of Marc Chagall a Palazzo Pitti. For more information or to please your bids click here.