This is a unique celebration of the early life of the greatest Russian-born painter of the twentieth century. It is the ultimate proof, if more were needed, that Chagall drew the inspiration for his dream-like, deceptively primitivist work, almost exclusively from his Russian home-land. The scenes of everyday Jewish life in Russia were mostly reproduced from memory, long after the artist had left his native town of Vitebsk, first for the heady, intellectual atmosphre of St. Petersburg, and later for the bohemian Paris of the 1920s.

This is a unique celebration of the early life of the greatest Russian-born painter of the twentieth century. It is the ultimate proof, if more were needed, that Chagall drew the inspiration for his dream-like, deceptively primitivist work, almost exclusively from his Russian home-land. The scenes of everyday Jewish life in Russia were mostly reproduced from memory, long after the artist had left his native town of Vitebsk, first for the heady, intellectual atmosphre of St. Petersburg, and later for the bohemian Paris of the 1920s.

The book is divided into four sections, covering the chronology of Chagall"s 98-year life, his childhood, and youth, with glimpses into the future, after he had left Russia in 1923.

There is much contemporary documentary evidence in the shape of photographs of Vitebsk, Chagall"s hometown, his family, and himself as a young man, and much revealing and fascinating detail of his background.

The paintings and prints show scenes from the daily life in the shtetl, the Jewish village or Jewish quarter of a small town which existed in pre-war Eastern Europe.