Russian-born artist Marc Chagall produced colorful paintings, mosaics, murals, and stained glass windows over the course of a long career. Chagall spent his childhood in a Hasidic Jewish community in Vitebsk, a small city in what is now Belarus.

In 1910, Chagall moved to Paris, where he met influential modernist artists such as Amedeo Modigliani and Fernand Léger. Inspired by the city’s art scene, Chagall experimented with movements such as cubism, surrealism, and fauvism. He cultivated a signature style in which vivid colors create whimsical, dreamlike scenes filled with ghosts, angels, and mythological creatures.

Among his most famous works is a 2,400-square-foot mural painted on the ceiling of the Palais Garnier in Paris. One of his largest mosaics, Orphée (1969), stands in the National Gallery’s Sculpture Garden. Chagall died in France in 1985.