1. Marc Chagall (1887-1985), La Maison Bleue, 1920, Huile sur toile, 97 x 67 cm, Musée des Beaux-Arts de Liège/La Boverie. Photo: G.Micheels, Ville de Liège, La Boverie, ©ADAGP, Paris, 2023.
Chagall and La Piscine,
a long-lasting relation
In 2023-2024, the Musée de La Piscine in Roubaix present it's fourth exhibitions of the French artist Marc Chagall, who was already exhibited in the following exhibition "After The Earth Is So Bright" in 2007, "The Thickness of Dreams" in 2012 and "The Sources of Music" in 2015. Thus, it's with a great deal of care and a lot of questions that I approached this show: why does the museum present Chagall for the fourth time? What's the purpose? And what's the current research on the artist? And more importantly, what's the link to the collection of the museum which only has one minor work from the artist?
Thus, the exhibition titled reveals this story: "The cry of freedom. Chagall Politics". Thus, we already imagine how this artist who evolved during the two world wars, anchor his work in the history of the 20th century, but also his life, his migration, his trips and his childhood in Russia, France, Germany, the United States and Mexico, before settling in the Mediterranean.
His art making reflects it, and it nourished his Jewish roots, by listening to the cultures he encountered, by his commitment to man and his rights, to equality and tolerance. He also carried a great cry of freedom, and he confronted his eye with the wars, with the artistic battles, the poetic forces and the imagination.
Sections by sections, deeper and deeper
2. Marc Chagall (1887-1985), Autoportrait, 1907, Aquarelle, fusain, encre sur papier, 20,7 x 16,4 cm, Paris, Centre Pompidou - Musée national d'art moderne, Centre de création industrielle. Photo: Centre Pompidou, MNAM-CCI, dist. RMN-Grand Palais / Philippe Migeat © ADAGP, Paris, 2023
While the show is not arranged chronologically, this article translates the exhibition into thematic sections, the first one being an artist coming from another part of Europe, and moving to France to save his life, thus, Marc Chagall became an immigrant.
As a migrant, and as a poor person, Marc Chagall use himself as a model for his works. Thus, his first recorded self-portrait date back from 1907, where he clearly have reference to Rembrandt, an artist he deeply admire, and he probably saw at the Louvre or the Petit Palais. Thus, Chagall became inspired by this figure and became aware on how important his to create it's own identity.
With his picture, his mixing his own representation with symbolic and metaphorical variations, thus escaping the marks of time and revealing both an introspective approach and a distancing from oneself. Representing himself as a youthful face, his attributes and accessories are associated with the representation of a vital and permanent role play, between the inner and outer Chagall.
This theatrical act also presents his admiration for the circus world, thus materializing an interior and metaphysical quest with the use of costume.
The second section is dedicated to Russia, his home country. In the 1940s, he wrote the following sentence: “Alone is mine / The country that lies in my soul / I enter it without a passport / As at home. ».
As the artist left his soul in Russia, his memory, his family and his childhood, Chagall composed a pictorial universe impregnated by the experiences of his young years. Thus, the artist is making an hommage to his city, his bell towers, domes of the churches, the snow-covered hills and isbas and the Dvina.
This assortment of motifs created a perpetual movement, which constantly situates the past (Russia) in the experiences and events of the present (France), both historical and political. Even more when the artist moved to Paris in 1911, and he returned to Vitebsk in 1914 when the First War was declared, thus making a back and fourth between the French avant-garde and his imagery from Russia.
During those time, he saw the conflict and observed the damage, the return of soldiers and the wounded from the front. In March 1917, he decided to become a member and delegate of the Youth Union, and a year later, he was appointed commissioner of fine arts of the Vitebsk region.
Just after the Second World War, Chagall was inspired by the revival of the Yiddish literature and poetry, made possible by the October Revolution and the living and revolutionary language which have been learn by numerous artists.
It's also the time of the Jewish artistic renaissance which began in 1918 by the Kultur Lige, a cultural and social association created in Kiev by Jewish socialist parties and members of the Kiev group. Inside the group, Marc Chagall carries its passion of an entire generation of Jewish artists and their hopes of seeing the birth of a new world.
One of the great moments of this renaissance was when Chagall was invited in 1920 to work at the National Jewish Chamber Theater in Moscow (GOSEKT) by its director, Alexis Granowsky. The artist makes the sets and costumes for the first performance in Moscow consisting of three plays by Sholem Aleichem: The Agents, The Lie and Mazeltov, with the participation of actor Solomon Mikhoels.
The notion of time and geography is also important and primordial to recognise the works of Chagall. Thus when the artist returned in France in 1923, after a stay in Berlin, Marc Chagall settled in Paris, at 110 avenue d'Orléans, then in Boulogne.
Between the two wars, the artist had his first commission with the art dealer Ambroise Vollard in 1926. Together, they published a new edition of La Fontaine's Fables, thus Chagall confronts the reader with an unknown visual territory, the one from the countryside and villages far from Paris, which nourishes his painting and allows him to discover a country in which he wishes to settle permanently.
At the same time, the artist is face with a rise of anti-Semitism in France, quoting "the times are not prophetic... Evil reigns”. In response to this dark landscape, he worked from 1930 on figures of prophets to illustrate the Bible.
3. Marc Chagall (1887-1985), Jérusalem, le mur des Lamentations, 1931, Huile et gouache sur toile, 100 x 81,2 cm, Collection particulière, Photo: Archives Marc et Ida Chagall, Paris, © ADAGP, Paris, 2023
During those months, Dizengoff wish to “refresh his imagination [and find] a new orientation ", in a place where the human race had it's origin in, its ancestors and where Chagall had a visual chock when he saw Jerusalem:“Jerusalem? In this city, we have the impression that we have reached the end of the journey. I felt in these narrow alleys, where goats, Arabs circulate, in the alleys where red, blue and green Jews now go towards the Wailing Wall, that Christ walked here not long ago, here we feel that Judaism and Christianity form one and the same family.".
More importantly, he was fascinated with the light, the raw materials, the desert and the link Jerusalem and the region have with religion. Thus, and for the first time, the artist decided to depict the landscape and interiors of the region, such as the interiors of synagogues in Tel Aviv and Safed.
When he came back to Paris, he was deeply struck by his experiment, and he decides to start a projet of the illustrations for the Bible: “Only two roads were open to me: take the stones of this country and hit my head with them, or return as silently as I came, as if nothing had happened.". Helped by the art dealer Vollard, he produces numerous preparatory gouaches for the etchings of the Bible, and it was published by Tériade in 1956, in hommage to Vollard who died in 1939.
It's the Second World War, and in October 1940, the Vichy government decreed a new statute prohibiting Jews from entering France, the artist accepted this new law and moved to the United States.
First, he moved from Paris to Marseille, but after a raid at the Hôtel Moderne, Chagall was released thanks to the intervention of Varian Fry. With the help of Alfred Barr, the director of the Museum of Modern Art in New York, hthe artist move out from Europe, and got an invitation to bring all of his major works in an exhibition at MoMA.
During this journey to the USA with a group of artists in exile in New York, he spoke about the fate of those who remained on the continent: "The water as far as the eye can see, the waves, and the slight sparkle of the marine horizon [...] From the bridge, it seems to me see in the distance the rabbis and their families being taken to the camps. But in the air, we do not hear the sighs of those who are dragged towards the ovens.".
On June 21, 1941, Marc and Bella Chagall arrived in New York, and they settled at 4 East 74th Street. But, the artists continue to create and when Solomon Mikhoels visited him in 1943, he said he became an “anti-fascist artist”, which got involved with his wife Bella in numerous Jewish organizations.
He's also greatly involved with artists who exile in the US, and with Pierre Matisse they created the emblematic exhibition "Artists in Exile", which opened in March 1942 at the Pierre Matisse gallery, bringing 14 refugee artists in New York and works by Marc Chagall.
After the show, Pierre became the gallerist of Chagall, and they would develop an artistic and personal tie that would last until the end of his life and give birth to numerous exhibitions. One of his first important show was the one at the Museum of Modern Art, which was a gift of Alfred Barr to Chagall after the artist left France.
During the preparation of the show, the artist was devastated by the loss of Bella in 1944 and by the consequences of the war, which broke his silence by writing stories and poems in his native language, Yiddish.
On April 9, 1946, The exhibition of Marc Chagall opening at MoMA. The press release of the exhibition state:
"More than twenty important oils from European countries are now arriving in New York to be included in the large retrospective exhibition of paintings by Marc Chagall which the Museum of Modern Art will open April 10. These paintings have never been shown in the United States and come from such great collections
It is expected that the final shipment - six works from Paris - will be received before the end of March. The exhibition will remain on view through June 23 and will be sent to other museums and art galleries throughout the country by the Museum's Department of Circulating Exhibitions"
4. April 9, 1946 - June 23, 1946. The Museum of Modern Art Exhibition Records, 316.2. The Museum of Modern Art Archives, New York. IN313.1B. Photograph by Soichi Sumani
In 1948, Chagall returned to France after the war, and he settled in Orgeval in the Mediterranean, working on numerous monumental projects in religious buildings and performance halls, around the theme of peace. He also defended the creation of the State of Israel on May 14, 1948 and provided his unwavering support to the Jewish people defending their right to a country.
His last works are also stain glass, which are presented in the new synagogue at Hadassah Hospital (1962), Chapelle des Cordeliers in Sarrebourg (1974-1978), the Cathedral of Metz, etc.
Informations about the exhibition
Place: La Piscine
Date: 7.10.2023 - 7.1.2024
Curator: Ambre Gauthier and Meret Meyer
Ticket: Available on the website of the La Piscine OR at the front desk of the museum
Informations about La Piscine
23 rue de l'Esperance
FR-59100 Roubaix
Phone: +33 03 20 69 23 60
Fax: +33 03 20 69 23 01
Mail: lapiscine.musee@ville-roubaix.fr