Study for Birthday

Study for Birthday by Marc Chagall is a preparatory drawing executed in pencil on paper in 1915. Created during a period when the French-influenced artist was temporarily residing in Vitebsk (now Belarus) due to the outbreak of World War I, this work captures a foundational moment in Chagall’s artistic development, serving as an essential preliminary sketch for his celebrated oil painting, Birthday (Anniversaire).

As a drawing, this piece demonstrates the artist’s characteristic rapid and decisive handling of the pencil medium. Chagall used expressive, energetic lines to quickly establish the spatial relationships and the impossible, gravity-defying posture of the figures. The composition focuses on the artist bending backward and down to kiss his fiancée, Bella Rosenfeld, who sits upright holding a small bouquet. This act of intimate, airborne celebration became a central visual metaphor in Chagall’s oeuvre, representing the euphoria and intense personal happiness surrounding his relationship with Bella. The study was crucial for working out the dynamic tilt and weight distribution necessary to suspend the figures mid-air, a complex choreographic challenge the artist needed to resolve before moving to the final canvas.

This specific piece is vital for understanding Chagall’s process in 1915, a year characterized by the synthesis of Cubist fragmentation and deeply personal, narrative imagery. While the finished oil painting, Birthday, is widely recognized and frequently reproduced, available for high-quality prints and referenced within public domain art archives, this preliminary work offers a rare window into the genesis of that masterpiece. The drawing highlights the careful planning that underpinned Chagall’s seemingly whimsical style. This important drawing is part of the extensive collection held by the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in New York.