Düsseldorf,
Just a year ago the Mapfre Foundation analyzed the whole of Marc Chagall’s trajectory going beyond innocence and poetry that, reasonably, are attributed to his work: approaching the humanistic commitment that the circumstances of his life and his context pushed him to acquire. Now it is the K20-Kunstsammlung Nordrhein-Westfalen de Düsseldorf who collects the glove and dedicates extensive exposure to the Videbsk artist: reviews the whole of his journey, through one hundred and twenty paintings and compositions on paper, but especially his first stage, the one after 1910 and 1923, emphasizing the powerful influence of the vision of the vision The real and, above all, on the socially critical and something darker of its production.
The tour starts, chronologically, with the arrival of the painter to Paris, in 1911 and with only twenty -three years: he had no money, he spoke little French and felt overwhelmed by the modernity and energy of the city. The Jewish authors like him who established themselves in France in those years were quite a lot: unlike the situation in other European countries, there they were recognized as free citizens since 1791, no matter how rare discrimination in everyday life was rare.
Unlike most of those migrant artists, Chagall quickly agreed to the Parisian circles of the creative and literary avant -garde and was part of a very close group of friendships that supported each other: in their nucleus were the writers and critics of art Guillaume Apollinaire, Blaise Cendars and Ludwig Rubiner, the cinematic theoretician Ricciotto Ricciotto Can. Robert and Sonia Delaunay or Fernand Léger, among others. Herwarth Walden, Berlin gallery owner and editor of the magazine Der SturmHe was also a member of that brotherhood and in 1913 he presented works by the still unknown Chagall in the first German fall hall and offered him his first great individual in 1914.
Like many young creators, he experimented with the styles managed by those avant -garde partners: he conjugated the fauvistas tones and the diversity of planes of Cubism with Jewish themes or linked to the folklore of Eastern Europe. The result was a surreal world of reasons based on his own experiences that made Chagall unique at that time. Individuals and floating animals, violinists in roofs, giants, dwarves and hybrid beings populate their compositions, always painted with dazzling colors. His language was “Srenaturel” (supernatural), as Apollinaire expressed with enthusiasm on his first visit to the study of Russian.
In just four years, he was able to develop an impossible style to confuse. The strange worlds that Chagall created were not only fairy tales with poetic burden, but contained an acute criticism of the social conditions of their time. He did not stop reflecting on his origins: especially in his first works, he addressed his childhood and youth in the confines of the Jewish neighborhood of the aforementioned Videbsk. That little city, with its densely populated houses and the distinctive tower of its church, were for him a source of inspiration and paintings like Sabbath (1911), The yellow room (1911), Russia, donkeys and others (1911) and Gólgota (La Crucifixion) (1912) tell stories of everyday Jewish life, of festivities and customs, of love and lust, but also of the accusations of ritual murder and pogroms that he met in his hometown in 1905.
After that exhibition at the Sturm-Galerie of Berlin, Chagall traveled to Vettebsk in the summer of 1914: he had planned to stay there for a short time, but the outbreak of World War I prevented him from returning to Paris. He remained in Russia for eight years, alternating stays in St. Petersburg, Vítebsk and Moscow; His marriage to Bella Rosenfeld would then give a new impulse to her art: her happiness became a central motive. At the same time, he returned to family issues: he painted his parents and brothers; His only pictorial experiments of that time had to do with landscapes and lovers.
The promises of the October 1917 Revolution initially aroused Chagall’s enthusiasm: in 1918, he was appointed Commissioner of Fine Arts of the Visebsk region, founded an art academy and became its director. He invited artists as relevant as the Lissitzky and Kazimir Malévich to teach, but their different visions regarding painting and their relationship with the new times gave rise to disputes, especially with Malevich, who already defended the suprematism, those abstract and pure canvases. When Chagall’s students preferred to be from Malevich, the first one left the center and moved to Moscow. In K20 we will find a series of extraordinary works on paper that show how, despite those discussions, Chagall experienced with abstract compositions over the years.
He would return to Berlin in 1922 and then to Paris in 1923, discovering that the works he had left had been sold or destroyed: he would begin to paint new versions of those, which delighted collectors and gallery owners. For the first time, he was able to lead a carefree life in the twenties and the first thirty: he would have his translation in a new lightness in his fabrics and in an almost transparent application of the pigments. Vettebsk reasons are juxtaposed with new impressions of France; At that time, he declined an invitation from the surrealists to join his group.
Since that period, it is almost impossible to discern a chronologically identifiable stylistic development in Chagall’s work: he repeated pictorial reasons and issues, generated new contexts for them and was inspired by previous stages of his career. In 1941 he emigrated to New York not to return to France until 1948; It had long been consolidated as an international artist, with numerous exhibitions and important orders for stained glass and decorative works for theaters and operas.
In his last works, from the 1960s to that of 1980, he also reacted with sensitivity to international social events; Vítebsk and Paris became more and more places of longing and Christ, as a crucified Jew, a universal symbol of suffering.
The starting point of this German exhibition, curated by Susanne Meyer-Büser and organized with Albertina, are three paintings created in Paris before World War I and now in the Kunsmmlung collection, which are among the most relevant of its early legacy: Self -portrait with brushes (1909), The violinist (1911-1914) and Rabbi with lemon (vacation) (1914).
“Chagall”
Kunstsammlung Nordrhein-Westphalen
Grabbeplatz 5
Düsseldorf
From March 15 to August 10, 2025
