Chagall in Cranberry Lake

Reviled as a “degenerate” by the Nazis, celebrated by the Paris art world and investigated for suspected Communist ties by the FBI, Marc Chagall prompted little more than bemused shrugs from the townspeople of Cranberry Lake in the summer of 1944. That August the world-famous artist, best known for fanciful scenes of Jewish village life in his native Russia, spent several weeks at the Evergreen Hotel with his wife, Bella, painting and taking strolls along the lake. Though the couple, who had escaped Vichy France and were living in New York City, were fluent in four languages, they spoke little English.

“Well, of course, we had our opinion of him,” recalled David R. MacAleese, whose brother William owned the Evergreen, in a 1985 interview in the . MacAleese and his wife operated the Park Restaurant across the street, where