The Praying Jew
Über das Gemälde
In his 1931 autobiography, My Life, Chagall related how, while visiting Vitebsk (present-day Belarus), the city in which he was born, he realized that the traditions in which he had grown up were fast disappearing and that he needed to document them. He paid a man to pose in his father’s prayer clothes and then painted him, limiting his palette primarily to black and white, as befit the solemnity of the subject. This portrait is noteworthy for the simplicity of its execution; nonetheless, its striking patterns, abstract background, and the slightly distorted features of the model demonstrate Chagall’s absorption of modern trends, especially Cubism.
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Chagall often painted variants or replicas of works he particularly loved. The Art Institute’s Praying Jew is one of three versions of this composition. He painted the original canvas in 1914, and when he traveled back to Paris in 1923, he took this painting with him. He learned upon his return that much of the work he had left in France had been lost during World War I. This prompted him to make two versions of The Praying Jew before it left his studio: they are the present work and another in the Ca’ Pesaro, Venice; the original is now in the Kunstmuseum, Basel. The later compositions differ from the original only in small details.
This is one of thirty-five works that comprise the Winterbotham Collection. Click here to learn more about the collection.
Art Institute of Chicago
Derweil im Leben von Marc Chagall
Das ganze Lebenearly 1913
First Solo Exhibition
In early 1913 Chagall's first solo exhibition was held at the Académie Marie Vassilieff in Paris.
25 July 1915
Wedding to Bella Rosenfeld
On 25 July 1915 Marc Chagall and Bella Rosenfeld were married.
1918
Commissar of Arts for Vitebsk Governorate
In the summer of 1918, after meeting Lunacharsky, he was appointed plenipotentiary Commissar for the Arts of Vitebsk Governorate; he founded the People's Art School and an art museum in Vitebsk.
28 January 1919
Opening of the Vitebsk Art School
On 28 January 1919 Chagall opened the Vitebsk Art School, to which he attracted El Lissitzky and Kazimir Malevich, and also hired his first teacher, Yehuda (Yuri) Pen.
1922
Emigration from Soviet Russia
In 1922 he left with his family for Lithuania, where an exhibition of his work was held in Kaunas, and from there went on to Germany.
1923
Travel: France
