OTTAWA.- This summer, the National Gallery of Canada is presenting, concurrently with its major exhibition Alex Colville, two exhibitions featuring works from the national collection: Chagall: Daphnis & Chloé and Luminous and True: The Photographs of Frederick H. Evans. Organized by the NGC, the two shows run until September 13, 2015, in the Prints, Drawings and Photographs Galleries.

Marc Chagall (1887–1985) ranks among the most admired artists of the modern period. Throughout his long, prolific career, which spanned most of the 20th century, his work revolved around the central theme of love. The exhibition Chagall: Daphnis & Chloé presents-for the very first time in Ottawa-the entire series of 42 lithographs illustrating the idyll of the young goatherd Daphnis and shepherdess Chloé, who live near Mytilene on the island of Lesbos. Their romance leads them on many adventures filled with intrigue and deceit.

This set of lithographs illustrating the famous classical fable by second-century Greek poet Longus is one of Chagall’s most important graphic works. Seldom shown, because of its great fragility, it enchants with its fanciful, richly coloured imagery. It highlights Chagall’s unique style, which sets him apart from the main twentieth-century art movements followed by some of his contemporaries, such as Matisse and Picasso.

The Gallery also invites the public to visit the exhibition Luminous and True: The Photographs of Frederick H. Evans. Nature lovers and architecture enthusiasts will discover the favourite themes of this British artist (1853–1943), illustrated through superb photographs of cathedrals, forests and landscapes. The show brings together, in intimate gallery spaces, some 70 works, including an album that visitors can explore using a touch screen.

Evan’s delicate yet striking platinum and photogravure prints represent a synthesis of two streams of philosophical inquiry dear to the Victorians: the enigma of natural laws, their relevance and their manifestations in the physical world, and the connections between the sciences and the arts. Through photography, Evans sought spiritual harmony between objective knowledge and subjective experience.