LANDERNEAU.- The exhibition, hosted by the Fonds Hélène & Édouard Leclerc pour la Culture, brings together his major works from international museums and private collections. These works illustrate the theme of the Bible and the events that marked the artist’s life, such as revolution, war and exile, and the essential texts from the past that provided inspiration for his great illustrated books such as Jean de La Fontaine and Gogol. Writers or poets who were Chagall’s close friends – Blaise Cendrars, Guillaume Apollinaire, André Malraux, and Louis Aragon – also bear testament to the other exceptional meetings of his life.

Nearly three hundred works are presented at Landerneau and they encapsulate an extraordinary life that unfolded in parallel with the 20th century. Chagall’s body of work is present on every continent and conveys an infinite message of freedom.

La Russie / Vitebsk Russia / Vitebsk
During his first stay in Paris, in 1911, Chagall installed his workshop in La Ruche, an area that was home to many artists. He was amazed by everything he discovered: museums, the way of life, the new language he was learning... Everything was a source of wonder! Yet he remained loyal to his homeland and expressed his feelings of nostalgia through his paintings. He returned to Russia in 1914 and was forced to remain there when the First World War began. During this time, he married Bella and took the opportunity to meet Russian poets that embodied the “Russian soul”, such as Alexander Blok, Esenin, Mayakovsky or Pasternak.

Les Fables de La Fontaine La Fontaine’s Fables
In 1925, Vollard asked Chagall to give a new lease of life to La Fontaine’s Fables. His highly perceptive reading intensified the resonance of these verses that spoke to him of an animal kingdom with which he was very familiar, and of the very French arts of discourse and morality. First using colour in gouaches that are pure explosions of virtuosity, and then freely experimenting with black and white in engraving, he explored subjects, mastered light and produced each fable very quickly, bringing together La Fontaine’s fabulous characters – his calves, cows, pigs, chicks, donkeys, wolves, lambs, foxes or storks – and making them his own.

La Bible The Bible
In 1931, Vollard also asked Chagall to illustrate the Bible, this complex and familiar narrative he had known since he was a child in the Hasidic community of Vitebsk. Who better than Chagall to recount these great scenes and this epic tale lying at the basis of human history? In early 1931, Chagall made a journey that would take him to Palestine.

In Jerusalem, the holy sites that were home to the prophets and Christ were a revelation to him. As an artist who would usually work non-stop in his studio, here Chagall painted on site, setting up his easel in front of Jerusalem’s glorious, eternal landscapes.

La Guerre, l’exil War / Exile
Following an invitation from the Museum of Modern Art in New York and from Varian Fry, Director of the American Rescue Committee, Chagall decided, together with his wife Bella and his daughter Ida, to leave France in 1941 for the United States. There he found many other artists who had fled the barbarity of the Nazis, such as Léger, Duchamp, Masson, Zadkine, Breton and Ozenfant. The compositions produced during his new exile in these war years often have sombre and nocturnal tones. This new resonance reinforces Chagall’s exceptional power as storyteller, as he provides his own interpretation of the tragic, convulsive events sweeping across Europe and his native Russia.

Sculpture et céramique
Sculpture and Ceramics In the 1950’s, Chagall the painter ventured into ceramics. Another world opened up to him in the different pottery workshops installed along the Côte d’Azur, near his residence in Vence. “In ceramics and sculpture, what could I bring to this material? Perhaps the memories of my father, my mother, my childhood, and my ancestors for a thousand years... Perhaps also of my heart. One has to be humble before the material, very humble! It is a natural material and all that is natural is religious”, he said to his friend Charles Sorlier in 1972. Once again, Chagall the creator is engaging with poetry, retrieving sculpture from ancient times and incorporating a dream-like quality, hardly ever seen before.

Daphnis et Chloé Daphnis and Chloé
Chagall’s universe is composed of personal and imaginary experiences, both of which regularly appear throughout his ample and complex body of work. At the beginning of the 1960’s, he illustrated Longus’ Daphnis and Chloe. In this exceptional book, the painter rediscovers the light and colour of the enchanted island of Poros, in Greece, where he was staying to be as close as possible to the Greek author’s pastoral vision. The characters and landscapes in an Eden saturated with vibrations of colour make this work one of the most remarkable illustrated books of all time. The communion between writer and painter is such that the text and the lithographical illustrations are joined as if by an umbilical cord.

Le Cirque The Circus
The world of the circus has always been prominent in Chagall’s dreams. In Vitebsk, the transient acrobats and illusionists were always eagerly awaited; travelling to every corner of Russia, they brought with them an air of freedom and celebration that fascinated his inner child. In the 1960’s, luxurious gouaches or wash paintings would rekindle his childhood dreams. From one trapeze to another, he created men and women in glittering costumes that nearly touched the sky, jugglers that performed beside bareback riders balanced upon magnificent horses, and tightrope walkers that rubbed shoulders with acrobats or colourful, heavily made-up clowns. All moved to the beat of popular music in the circus ring that became the centre of attention for the surprised spectators and the now complicit painter.

Les grands thèmes Major Themes
The 1980’s were one of Chagall’s great periods when he revisited the mythic themes of literature. During this time, the artist, almost in his 90’s, painted with a renewed verve and acuity. In the village of SaintPaul-de-Vence, which was now to be his home until his death, he made a permanent fixture in his final paintings, saturating it with light and Mediterranean colours. These works significantly produced in the last period of his life, are a perfect confirmation of André Malraux’s creative intuition. A great admirer of Chagall, Malraux praised his poetic power and saw in him “one of the major colourists of our time”.