In 1948, Chagall returned to Paris before buying a house in Vence in 1950.

Since his partner Virginia Haggard had left him, in 1952 he married Valentina Brodsky, who was also a Russian Jew.

In the South of France, he began to branch out technically and worked with ceramics at the Ramiés in the Madoura Gallery in Vallauris, in the same studio as Picasso.

Through his friendship with Father Couturier, he became involved in the programme of Notre-Dame de toute Grâce Church in Assy where he created a large ceramic mural and his first stained-glass windows for the baptistry.

1955 saw the beginning of the project to decorate the Chapels du Calvaire in Vence, which then became known as the Biblical Message cycle.

Over 20 years, the artist fulfilled countless important public and private commissions: stained-glass windows (for example in Metz, Reims, Jerusalem, the UN HQ in New York, Zurich and Mayence), paintings (ceiling of the Opéra National de Paris, painted murals in the New York Metropolitan Opera), mosaics (e.g. The Four Seasons, 1974, Chicago) tapestries (for example the Gobelins tapestries he wove for the Knesset – Israeli Parliament) and stage work (set design and costumes for Daphnis et Chloé at the Opéra National de Paris).

At the same time he produced a great many lithographs and engravings for illustrations, particularly for Tériade or his Paris-based trader Aimé Maeght.

In 1966, he donated the Biblical Message to the French State, which was firstly exhibited at the Louvre before inspiring the creation of the museum in Nice – inaugurated in 1973 in Chagall’s presence.

He continued to work right up until his death on 28th March 1985 in Saint-Paul-de-Vence where he is buried.