: The San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (SFMOMA) will be the sole
venue outside Paris for a major retrospective of the work of
painter Marc Chagall from July 26 through November 4. "Marc
Chagall" will include approximately 65 paintings and 88 works on
paper -- including many never before seen in the United States --
from all periods of the artist's seven-decade career.
Organized jointly by the Réunion des Musées Nationaux, Paris, in
conjunction with the Musée National Message Biblique Marc
Chagall, Nice, and SFMOMA, the exhibition is the first
comprehensive look at this artist since 1985 and offers a unique
opportunity to reevaluate a body of work that is universally
renowned but often underestimated.
Jean-Michel Foray, director of the Chagall Museum in Nice and the
Fernand Léger Museum in Biot, France, has organized the
retrospective; overseeing the San Francisco presentation is Janet
Bishop, SFMOMA curator of painting and sculpture.
Chagall's work is distinguished by surrealistic inventiveness, as
well as by a use of humor and fantasy that draws deeply on the
resources of the unconscious. Strong and often brilliant colors
infuse his canvases with a dreamlike, nonrealistic simplicity,
while the combination of imagination, religion and nostalgia
conveys a joyous quality.
One of the key themes addressed in the exhibition will be how
Chagall's conception of the artist as a messenger from a better
and more spiritual world drew him away from the modernist
movements of his time. Over the course of his lengthy and
prolific career, Chagall distanced himself from prominent
avant-garde art movements: in Paris in 1911 he refused to
formally align himself with the Cubists; in Moscow in 1920 he
broke with the Suprematist group; and in Paris in 1924 he refused
to join the Surrealist group. Yet Chagall selectively
appropriated aspects of the modernist program -- Cubism's
fracturing of space, Surrealism's privileging of the dream world,
Modernism's liberation of color from the constraints of
description -- and used them to structure themes drawn from his
roots in Jewish and Russian vernacular culture and his emotional
and spiritual life.
Marc Chagall (1887-1985) was born in Vitebsk, Russia, the eldest
of nine children in a poor family of Hasidic Jews. He was
educated in art in St Petersburg and, from 1911 to 1914, in
Paris. His childhood in a deeply religious household inspired the
subject matter for Chagall's many paintings depicting Jewish
life, folklore and Bible stories. He returned to Russia in 1915
and after the Russian Revolution was director of the Art Academy
in Vitebsk and designed décor for the State Jewish Chamber
Theater in Moscow. Chagall painted several murals for the theater
and executed the sets for numerous productions, many of which are
featured in this exhibition.
In 1923 he moved to France, where he spent the rest of his life,
except for a period of residence in the United States from 1941
to 1948. He died in St Paul de Vence, France, on March 28, 1985.
"Marc Chagall" includes work from all major periods of the
painter's artistic activity -- the Russian years (1910-23), which
included his stay in Paris from 1911 to 1941; the Paris years
(1924-40); the American years (1941-47); and the Vence years
(1948-85).
An illustrated exhibition catalog features 240 pages and
approximately 150 color plates. The volume includes an
introduction by curator Jean-Michel Foray and a heavily
illustrated chronology of the artist's life by Chagall's
granddaughter Meret Meyer Graber and Jakov Bruk. Hardcover and
soft-cover editions are available at www.sfmoma.org.
An opening day lecture, "Chagall: An Intimate View," will be
presented by Bella Meyer, art historian, on Saturday, July 26, at
2 pm in the Phyllis Wattis Theater. Meyer, Chagall's
granddaughter, lectures worldwide on the work of her grandfather.
In this talk she shares memories of Chagall and reflects on the
impact of his art and personality.
Additional program information is available at www.sfmoma.org.
Admission to the exhibition "Marc Chagall" will require a special
ticket. Museum hours will be expanded during the run of the
exhibition.
To purchase tickets visit www.ticket web.com or call
866-468-3399.
