Marc Chagall was born Moishe Shagal on July 7, 1887, in Vitebsk, Russia. From 1907 to 1910, he studied in Saint Petersburg at the Imperial Society for the Protection of the Arts, and later with Léon Bakst. In 1910, he moved to Paris, where he associated with Guillaume Apollinaire and Robert Delaunay and encountered Fauvism and Cubism. He participated in the Salon des Indépendants and the Salon d'Automne in 1912. His first solo show was held in 1914 at Der Sturm gallery in Berlin.

Chagall visited Russia in 1914, and was prevented from returning to Paris by the outbreak of war. He settled in Vitebsk, where he was appointed Commissar for Art in 1918. He founded the Vitebsk Popular Art School and directed it until disagreements with the Suprematists resulted in his resignation in 1920. He then moved with his wife, the writer Bella Rosenfeld, and their daughter, Ida, to Moscow. There, he executed his first stage designs for the State Jewish Chamber Theater. After a sojourn in Berlin, where he was introduced to printmaking by Hermann Struck and where he published his autobiographical essay, "Mein Leben," Chagall returned to Paris in 1923. He met art dealer and publisher Ambroise Vollard, who would publish several illustrated books by Chagall. His first retrospective took place in 1924 at the Galerie Barbazanges-Hodebert, Paris. During the 1930s, he traveled to Palestine, the Netherlands, Spain, Poland, and Italy, and in 1933, the Kunsthalle Basel held a major retrospective of his work. During World War II, Chagall fled with his family to the United States. It was in New York, in 1943, that he met and worked with Stanley William Hayter at Hayter's renowned Atelier 17. He worked extensively on a suite of etchings based on a circus theme, utilizing string and textile imprints. He continued with his printmaking studies in New York, broadening his portfolio to include color lithographs, and in 1946, he was given a retrospective by The Museum of Modern Art in Manhattan.

He settled permanently in France in 1948 and exhibited in Paris, Amsterdam, and London. During 1951, he visited Israel and executed his first sculptures. The following year, the artist traveled in Greece and Italy. During the 1960s, Chagall continued to travel widely, often in association with large-scale commissions he received. Among these were windows for the synagogue of the Hadassah-Hebrew University Medical Center, Jerusalem, installed in 1962; a ceiling for the Paris Opéra, installed in 1964; a window for the United Nations building, New York, installed in 1964; murals for the Metropolitan Opera House, New York, installed in 1967; and windows for the cathedral in Metz, France, installed in 1968. An exhibition of the artist's work from 1967 to 1977 was held at the Musée du Louvre, Paris, in 1977-78, and a major retrospective was held at the Philadelphia Museum of Art in 1985. Chagall died March 28, 1985, in Saint-Paul-de-Vence, France.