Exhibition
"Color and ink. Marc Chagall and the Art Reviews"

Marc Chagall National Museum

OCTOBER 10, 2020 - JANUARY 11, 2021

Every day except Tuesday from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.

From October 10, 2020 to January 11, 2021, the Marc Chagall National Museum is devoting an exhibition on a little-known aspect of Chagall's work: his collaboration with numerous art and literary journals throughout his career. The opportunity to discover original unpublished works (written, essays, illustrations), related to the production and dissemination of major art magazines in the twentieth century.

Marc Chagall has, throughout his life, maintained a strong relationship with the written word.
From Yiddish manuscripts to illustrations for books, his work develops through words, to the rhythm of the narration and the printed page, giving rise to numerous editorial collaborations. Among them, famous illustrated books such as The Dead Souls of Nicolas Gogol (1923-1927) and The Fables of Jean de la Fontaine (1926-1928) or The Bible (1930-1956) but also numerous publications in art magazines.

This editorial genre, perhaps less familiar to the general public, nevertheless experienced considerable development in the^20th century.
Mirroring the intellectual and creative bubbling of the avant-garde, these magazines were the first tool for disseminating artistic innovations. Led by publishers, sometimes merchants, demanding and passionate, who commissioned texts from the greatest authors and illustrations - photographic or lithographic - to the greatest artists, art magazines have gradually become real places of creation, dialogue and crossover between text and image.

From the 1920s and for several decades, Marc Chagall's collaborations with French and international art magazines multiplied, showing his interest in this medium. The exhibition explores the uniqueness of each of these human, editorial and committed adventures.

From 1914, Chagall's work appeared in the German magazine Der Sturm, and the artist collaborated between 1923 and 1924 with the Yiddish magazines Shtrom and Khaliastra. His participation in the Cahiers d'art and Verve,edited by Tériade,by drawings for covers and illustrations, gives a visual identity to these magazines and positions the artist in the Parisian artistic circles of the interwar period.

During his exile in the United States, he participated in the surrealist magazine VVV in 1942, published from New York by André Breton, militant act and affirmation of the existence of a utopian community of artists found in the individual experience of exile. Returning to France at the end of 1947, he worked with Aimé Maeght,pledging to join him to give shape for more than 20 years to the magazine Behind the Mirror.

The exhibition traces The link between Marc Chagall and art magazines, exploring the nature of his graphic and literary contributions. A unique opportunity to discover original works related to the illustrations present in the magazines and completely unpublished documents,partly from the artist's personal archives (original reviews, essays, letters).

This exhibition is organized by the Meeting of National Museums - Grand Palais and the national museums of the^20th century of the Alpes-Maritimes.
It will result in the publication of a catalogue.

Office of the Commissioner General
Anne Dopffer, General Curator of Heritage, Director^e of the 20th Century National Museums of the Alpes-Maritimes

Scientific Commissioner
Jean-Baptiste Delorme, Curator of the Marc Chagall National Museum, Nice
Amber Gauthier, Associate Curator, Doctor of Art History

Legend: Marc Chagall, Review Behind The Mirror 235 (published in October 1979). Special collection © ADAGP, Paris, 2020.