During his life, marked by two wars and an exile, Marc Chagall he created a body of work deeply rooted in 20th century history. A figure of displacement and migration, the artist traversed the world amid the torments of the century, from his childhood in Russia to France, Germany, the United States and Mexico, before settling in the Mediterranean. His art, imbued with a profound humanism, nourished by his Jewish roots and by listening to the cultures he encountered and the experiences he lived, is the messenger of a constant commitment in favor of the human being and his rights, equality and of tolerance among all beings.
A loud cry of freedom in Chagall's art
His art confronts the eye with the wars he fought and the artistic battles he waged, transcended by poetic force and imagination, combined with the pictorial vocabulary of derision and humor rooted in Jewish culture. Pencil and brush become weapons of peace for the painter, reflecting the labors of this "twentieth century forged in fire", whose "words and [echoes] cling to the air and petrify, bloody flesh on sheets of snow". Drawings and paintings thus reveal the unconditional idealism of the "painter witness of (his) times", his unshakable faith in harmony and universal peace between man and man, creating crossed glances and dialogues on history in the making.
Supported by recent research on a wide range of unpublished documents from the artist's archives, the exhibition offers a chrono-biographical journey presented in the new perspective on Chagall's political commitment, bringing together numerous masterpieces to discover thanks to notable French and international loans. Exceptional loan from the Philadelphia Museum of Nice, Il Pourim painting (1916-1917) plays an important role in the exhibition: it was exhibited in Germany by the Nazis in 1937 as an example of degenerate art. Rabbi in Black and White or Jew at Prayer (1923), on loan from the Art Institute of Chicago, will be exhibited alongside Solitude (1933), from the collections of the Tel Aviv Museum of Art. The Chagall exhibition. A Cry of Freedom is also supported by Indivisions Ida Chagall and Michel Brodsky. It is accompanied by a richly illustrated scientific catalogue, which summarizes the most recent research and reproduces numerous masterpieces and unpublished archives.
This spectacular exhibition presents the artist's work in light of the historical events he witnessed and took part in, providing the first comprehensive reading of his work from the perspective of his position and commitment. A co-production with the MAPFRE Foundation of Madrid and the Marc Chagall National Museum of Nice, under the direction of curators Ambre Gauthier and Meret Meyer, Chagall politique, Le cri de liberté is supported by the Ida Chagall and Michel Brodsky Indivisions and by numerous prestigious French loans and international.
