My Life (Oxford letters & memoirs) - Softcover

Chagall, Marc

4.07

1,057 ratings by Goodreads

9780192826213: My Life (Oxford letters & memoirs)

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0192826212 ISBN 13: 9780192826213

Publisher: Oxford Paperbacks, 1989

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The painter Marc Chagall died in 1985 while a major exhibition of his work, mounted jointly by the Royal Academy of Arts in London and the Philadelphia Museum of Art, was drawing massive crowds. A notable feature of that exhibition was the spotlight on quotations taken from this autobiography. The book, which first appeared in English translation in 1965, recounts Chagall's early life and throws light on the shaping of his creative genius. Chagall describes his childhood in the provincial Russian town of Witebsk, his early struggle as an artist in the face of poverty and opposition and his fruitful years in Paris after 1910 - the city where he found fulfilment and recognition. After recalling these experiences, Chagall relates his return to Russia on the outbreak of World War I and the despair that finally induced him to go back to France with his wife and young daughter in 1922.

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Review:

'Chagall writes as whimsically as he paints: lovingly of other people, humorously and lovingly of himself.' - Daily Mail 'Text and vision are indeed one: these autobiographical notes retain an astonishing amount of their original flavour.' - Daily Telegraph 'A strange book... full of enjoyments' - Guardian 'Anyone who likes Chagall's paintings will enjoy this book: the work of an unteachable, unspoiled folk artist.' - London Evening Standard 'Belongs unmistakably to the world of his paintings... it flickers with sharp responses and vivid phrases.' - New Stateman 'Written by any other person other than Chagall, assuming that person could write as well as Chagall does, it would still be absorbing... a remarkable book and also a contribution to the world literature of painters-writers.' - Jewish Quarterly 'The work of a great European who has carefully not repudiated his inheritance.' - Sunday Telegraph 'A charming, dotty, spasmodic chronicle accompanied by charming moody drawings.' - Queen

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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