BADEN-BADEN, GERMANY.- The Frieder Burda Museum in Baden-Baden presents a comprehensive retrospective of Marc Chagall. The exhibition that is being run under the slogan “Chagall. In a new light” will continue through October 29, 2006. It includes approximately 100 major works of this important painter, deceased in 1985. In cooperation with curator Jean-Louis Prat, Frieder Burda has managed to gather together numerous outstanding loans from Russia, France and other European countries, comprising all periods of Chagall’s artistic activity.

Yet a certain priority is given to Chagall’s early works, which have been rarely seen outside Russia so far. Main loaners are the Chagall family and the Pompidou Centre in Paris as well as two Russian museums, the Moscow Tretyakow Gallery and the national Russian Museum in St Petersburg. But also the Thyssen-Bornemisza Museum in Madrid, the Chagall Museum in Nice and numerous private collectors will contribute to this important retrospective of the Russian painter. A major part of the presented paintings are large in size, among them the ensemble of stage decors from the Moscow Jewish State Theater, whose central painting has a dimension of three to eight meters. Some of the paintings have never been shown in Germany so far.

Curator Jean-Louis Prat, an internationally known Chagall expert and president of the Marc Chagall Comity in Paris, attributes much importance to the spacious and bright halls of the Frieder Burda Museum. Prat: „Chagalls paintings are colour and light. Here in Baden-Baden, they will produce an unparalleled effect on the visitor. This exhibition will throw a new light on Chagall in the true sense of the word.“

Marc Chagall’s granddaughter Meret Meyer has also expressed her enthusiasm about the situation in the museum during a visit in Baden-Baden: „I clearly can’t imagine any better place for presenting my grandfathers works than this Richard Meier designed building in Baden-Baden.“

Another major section within the exhibition includes precious Chagall books from private collections. Jean-Louis Prat speaks of a first-rate retrospective: „The power of light designed by Richard Meier combined with the intensity and poetic charm of Chagall will make up a marvellous union!“ Prat has been director of the Foundation Maeght Museum in French Saint Paul de Vence for more than thirty years. Frieder Burda could gain him as guest curator for this Chagall retrospective.