Marc Chagall – Entre Ciel et Terre

6 July – 19 November 2007

“I sometimes have the impression that I am really someone else, that I have been born, one could say, between heaven and earth, that the world for me is a great desert where my impassioned soul wanders….but, the more I work the more I have tried to align these paintings with this distant dream”, wrote Marc Chagall in 1973 about his human and artistic journey.
Today, the journey we propose recounts the poetic universe of the artist who sometimes clings to the earth, showing an astonishing and sublime vitality against all odds….and an artist who sometimes soars heavenward, resting on the clouds and instilling himself with the eternal wisdom of the gods and translating their poetry for earthly mortals, always believing that “in art as in life, everything is possible if there is Love”.

Marc Chagall was born on 6 July 1887 in Vitebsk, a picturesque mixture of Jewish shetl and Russian village, populated by colourful inhabitants living in modest grey wooden cottages and houses painted in vibrant hues, nestled between synagogues and churches. Chagall came from a large, yet close, family of seven sisters and one brother. Chagall’s father, who worked in the herring trade, was quiet, melancholy and taciturn, while his mother was energetic, outgoing and full of hope and expectations. Vitebsk and its natural surroundings became for Chagall the pictorial archetype of his native land.

In 1909 in Vitebsk, the young Marc met Bella Rosenfeld, who would become his muse and wife. They married in the summer of 1915. With Bella, Chagall combined the happiness and harmony of sentiments shared – theirs was a happy union – their daughter Ida was born in 1916.

In 1914, he returned to Berlin for the opening of his first major personal exhibition at the Der Sturm Gallery In June, he left Germany for Vitebsk. The declaration of war prevented him from returning to Paris.
As a result of the revolution, Chagall lost his position in the Central Bureau of War Economy and returned to Vitebsk with his family. In 1918, Chagall was appointed Fine Arts Commissioner for the Vitebsk region.
Until 1920, he held an important position in the diffusion of art, in both St. Petersburg (then Petrograd) and Vitebsk. Chagall left for Moscow and was invited to work in the Kamerny Jewish Theatre, where he created the scenery and costumes as well as murals for the theatre. He finished writing his memoirs, Ma Vie (My Life).
At the beginning of the summer of 1922, the Chagall family left Russia for good to go to Berlin, and later Paris and France. In 1937, Chagall obtained French citizenship. As his work had been proclaimed “degenerate art” by the Nazi regime in 1941, Chagall and his family decided to flee France for New York, at the invitation of the Museum of Modern Art.

On 2 September 1944 Bella Chagall died in New York from a viral infection. Chagall found it impossible to return to work. However, his daughter was able to restore him by encouraging him to illustrate Bella’s book, Lumières allumées. He then did sketches for the scenery, a stage curtain and costumes for Igor Stravinsky’s ballet, The Firebird, choreographed by George Balanchine.

“Since the beginning, the sun only shone for me in France – and such a sun!”, wrote Chagall to one of his Russian correspondents after his first visit to the country.
In 1947, the painter and Virginia sailed for France, settling in Orgeval, outside Paris. In 1950, Chagall bought the villa Les Collines, near Nice. From there and for two decades, he devoted himself to new techniques of artistic expression: ceramics, mosaics, tapestries, stained glass. He and Virginia McNeil separated.
On 22 July 1952 the painter married Valentine (Vava) Brodsky.
In 1956 the Tériade Editions published La Bible with Chagall’s etchings. “It has always seemed to me (…) that since the very beginning it has been the greatest source of poetry. Since then, I have sought how to reflect this in life and art. The Bible is like an echo of nature, and this is the secret I have tried to convey.”
At the suggestion of André Malraux, Minister of Culture, Chagall painted the new ceiling of the Paris Opera, unveiled in September 1964. In 1966 Chagall and Vava left Vence and settled in Saint-Paul.
At the invitation of the USSR Minister of Culture, Chagall and Vava came to Moscow and Leningrad (now St. Petersburg) in 1973. That same year, the National Museum of the Marc Chagall Biblical Message was opened in Nice in the presence of André Malraux. In 1984, Chagall assisted with the private viewings of the retrospective of his work painted in Saint-Paul-de-Vence and of the exhibition of stained glass and sculptures in Nice. On 28 March 1985, Marc Chagall died at the age of 98. He is buried in the cemetery of Saint-Paul-de-Vence.

The retrospective of the Pierre Gianadda Foundation shows the numerous facets of Chagall’s art, with an exceptional selection of some 200 works from all periods of his life and from the greatest public collections, notably: the State Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow; the National Museum of Modern Art, Georges Pompidou Centre, Paris; the National Museum of the Marc Chagall Biblical Message, Nice, the Kunsthaus, Zurich, the Kunstmuseum, Bern, the Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art, Liège, the Tate Gallery, London, the Thyssen-Bornemisza Collection Foundation, Madrid, the Göteborgs Konstmuseum; the Russian Museum, St. Petersburg; the P.M. Dogadine Astrakhan Art Gallery; the Pskov State Museum of History, Architecture and Fine Arts; the National Gallery of Armenia, Yerevan; the State Gallery, Vladivostok, and many others. Important private European and American collections have also contributed to provide a particular resonance to this exhibition, which brings together paintings, works on paper to which the artist gave great importance throughout his life, watercolours, drawings, engravings, collages and illustrations from La Bible and Ma Vie. The exhibition board is maintained by Mrs. Ekaterina Selezneva, Head Curator of the Tretyakov National Gallery in Moscow

CFF “RailAway” special offer: 20% discount on the train journey, transfer and admission to the Foundation.

The Franck Collection
The Sculpture Park
The Gallo-Roman Museum
The Automobile Museum
Leonardo da Vinci, The Inventor
are open daily from 9 am to 7 pm
from 6 July to 19 November 2007