Marc Chagall

Marc Chagall is one of the twentieth century’s favorite artists, known and admired for his rich palette, his inventive approach, his accessible subjects, and the rich traditions behind his work. Combining fantasy, spirituality, and nostalgia with a distinctive modern painting style, Chagall’s canvases are infused with a joyous, dreamlike simplicity. Even as styles shifted from Cubism to Suprematism to Surrealism, his work remained individual and idiosyncratic — sometimes harming his art world reputation, but never his popular appeal.

Lavishly illustrated with more than 150 color reproductions, Marc Chagall accompanies a major retrospective conceived by the Réunion des Musées Nationaux, Paris, with the Musée National Message Biblique Marc Chagall, Nice, and co-organized with the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. An introductory essay by exhibition curator Jean-Michel Foray contextualizes the Russian-born artist’s work, while a heavily illustrated chronology of Chagall’s life assembled by Meret Meyer Graber and Jakov Bruk details the many stages of his career. The work is organized into four sections focusing on specific aspects of Chagall’s prodigious oeuvre, each with an introduction by Foray.