Throughout Marc Chagall’s life (1887-1985), the Bible was a major source of inspiration. The seventeen paintings of the Biblical Message, painted between 1956 and 1966, and housed at the Marc Chagall National Museum, are a brilliant testament to this.
Thanks to the donation made by Marc and Valentina Chagall to the French State in 1966, the museum also possesses an extraordinary series of forty gouaches from 1930 and 1931, which constitute his first graphic explorations of the biblical text.
Commissioned by publisher Ambroise Vollard to prepare an illustrated edition of the Bible, Chagall embarked on a masterful editorial project that, due to economic and political reasons, came to fruition only twenty-six years later.
The entire set of gouaches reveals Chagall’s unique vision, representing episodes from the Bible with poetry that alternates between being tragic, prosaic, or dreamlike.
Rarely shown due to their fragility, these forty gouaches have recently undergone significant restoration, which has restored the freshness of their colors. A selection of the engravings for the Bible will be presented concurrently.
The exhibition will also reveal to the public, for the first time, the printing press installed later by Marc Chagall in his house in Saint-Paul de Vence, which has just been donated to the museum.
Displaying these gouaches in close proximity to the paintings of the Biblical Message not only showcases the richness of the Marc Chagall National Museum’s collections but also offers visitors a unique opportunity to understand the extraordinary creative journey of one of the major artists of the 20th century.
The exhibition is accompanied by a publication: Marc Chagall. Colors for the Bible. It aims to explore the importance of the Bible in Chagall’s work and place him within a broad movement of the revival of sacred art in the 20th century.
