Chagall at Work: The National Marc Chagall Museum Reveals the Behind-the-Scenes of Creation

From February 7, 2026, the Marc Chagall National Museum in Nice welcomes “Chagall at Work. An Exceptional Loan to the Museum”. An exceptional exhibition that immerses visitors in the artist’s studio through 141 unpublished works from recent donations by his granddaughters, Bella and Meret Meyer.

After being presented at the Centre Pompidou in Paris in 2023 and 2024, 141 works by Marc Chagall are joining the museum that bears his name in Nice. Divided into two parts, the exhibition offers an unprecedented look at how the artist developed his most ambitious projects.

Sketches, maquettes, collages, ceramics and sculptures make up a journey that highlights the diversity of Chagall’s practices. More than a simple retrospective, the exhibition invites visitors to discover the creative stages of an artist in perpetual experimentation.

The secrets of the Palais Garnier ceiling

One of the exhibition’s highlights is dedicated to the commission for the Palais Garnier ceiling, executed at the request of André Malraux. In 1962, the Minister of Cultural Affairs entrusted Chagall with creating a new decoration intended to modernize the prestigious Parisian monument.

Forty-one sketches and maquettes trace the genesis of this monumental work of over 220 m², inaugurated in September 1964. Visitors discover how the artist gradually built his composition, paying homage to great composers such as Mozart, Debussy, Ravel and Tchaikovsky, while celebrating Paris, his adopted city.

The exhibition also revisits the controversy sparked by this commission. Some heritage defenders denounced the installation of a contemporary work in the building designed by Charles Garnier. Yet over time, Chagall’s ceiling became one of the most iconic symbols of the Paris Opera.

The Firebird, when painting and spectacle become one

Another major ensemble presented at the museum: the sixty-four sketches created for the sets and costumes of Igor Stravinsky’s ballet The Firebird.

In 1945, commissioned by the Ballet Theatre of New York, Chagall imagined in a few months all of the sets as well as eighty costumes. Still marked by the loss of his wife Bella the previous year, he fully immerses himself in this project that allows him to reconnect with his ideal of “total art.”

The displayed maquettes reveal a universe where color, movement and music merge. Inspired by Russian folklore, the fantastic characters, monsters and the mythical Firebird testify to the artist’s boundless imagination.

A constant quest for innovation

The exhibition also sheds light on lesser-known facets of Chagall’s work. From the 1960s onwards, the artist became passionate about collage, combining colored papers and fabrics with his drawings. These experiments become both preparatory studies for his monumental projects and autonomous works where he freely explores materials, textures and colors.

This constant search for innovation reveals a creator refusing to limit himself to a single technique, always in search of new forms of expression.

Thanks to the donations made by Bella and Meret Meyer to the Centre Pompidou, this exhibition brings together a rare collection of works allowing visitors to approach Marc Chagall’s creative gesture as closely as possible. A unique opportunity to discover behind the scenes and to understand how the artist transformed an idea, an emotion or a dream into a work of art.