Short answers, pulled from the story.
Marc Chagall was a Russian and French artist of Jewish ancestry, born Moishe Shagal in 1887 near Vitebsk, Belarus, who died on the 28th of March 1985. He was an early modernist associated with the École de Paris, known for paintings blending Eastern European Jewish folklore with Cubism, Fauvism, and Symbolism, as well as major works in stained glass, stage design, book illustration, and monumental murals.
Chagall was born in 1887 in Lyozna, near Vitebsk, in what was then the Pale of Settlement of the Russian Empire and is today Belarus. He was the eldest of nine children; his father, Khatskl Shagal, earned 20 roubles a month carrying barrels for a herring merchant, while his mother, Feige-Ite, sold groceries from their home. The family were observant Hasidic Jews, and Vitebsk's majority-Jewish population lived under severe movement and education restrictions imposed by the Imperial Russian government.
Chagall escaped through a rescue operation run by US journalist Varian Fry and US Vice-Consul Hiram Bingham IV in Marseille, who provided forged visas to artists and intellectuals. After being arrested at the Hotel Moderne in Marseille and released following pressure from Fry, Chagall and his wife Bella left Lisbon on the 10th of June 1941 aboard the Portuguese ship Mouzinho, arriving at Staten Island on the 21st of June 1941. He was one of over 2,000 people rescued by this operation.
The Jerusalem Windows are twelve stained glass windows Chagall created for the synagogue of Hebrew University's Hadassah Medical Center in Jerusalem, each representing one of the twelve tribes of Israel. Each window is approximately 11 feet high and 8 feet wide. Completed in 1961 and installed permanently in Jerusalem in February 1962, they are considered by art historian Raymond Cogniat to be Chagall's greatest work in stained glass. In 1973, Israel issued a 12-stamp set reproducing their images.
Commissioned in 1963 by France's Minister of Culture André Malraux, Chagall painted a new ceiling for the Palais Garnier (Paris Opera) that honored composers Mozart, Wagner, Mussorgsky, Berlioz, and Ravel, as well as famous actors and dancers. The canvas measured nearly 2,400 square feet and required 440 pounds of paint. It was unveiled on the 23rd of September 1964 in the presence of Malraux and 2,100 guests. Chagall dedicated it as "a gift of gratitude to France and her École de Paris."
After being appointed commissar of arts for Vitebsk in 1918, Chagall founded the People's Art College, known as "the Academy," and the Vitebsk Museum of Modern Art. The college attracted major artists including El Lissitzky and Kazimir Malevich, and the museum's creation marked what was called the "Vitebsk Renaissance," making the city one of the recognized avant-garde centers of the early 20th century. Chagall resigned in May 1920 after Suprematist faculty members took over the Academy.