DUSSELDORF.- The Russian-French painter Marc Chagall (b. 1887 in Vitebsk, Russian Empire, now Belarus – d. 1985 in Saint-Paul-de-Vence, France) was an exceptional talent of modernism and is considered one of the most important artists of the twentieth century. His fantastically poetic imagery and motifs remain enigmatic to this day, and his luminous, intense colors are extraordinary. With almost 120 paintings and works on paper, the exhibition at K20 – Kunstsammlung Nordrhein-Westfalen focuses on Chagall’s early works, created between 1910 and 1923. In addition to the influence of the avant garde on his work, the exhibition also reveals a little-known aspect of the renowned artist’s oeuvre: its socially critical and sometimes dark side. The exhibition also sheds light on the development of the artist and his motifs up to the 1980s, when he inspired a wide public with the bright colors of his works.

Marc Chagall arrived in Paris in 1911 at the age of twenty-three. Like many of his fellow artists, he was penniless, spoke little French, and was overwhelmed by the city’s modernity and energy. Unlike in other European countries, Jews had been recognized as free citizens in France since 1791. This attracted many Jewish artists to Paris to live, work, and express themselves freely through art. Nevertheless, they faced exclusion and discrimination in everyday life.

Unlike most immigrants, Chagall quickly gained access to the Parisian circles of the artistic and literary avant-garde and became part of a close-knit group of friends who supported each other. At its core were the writers and art critics Guillaume Apollinaire, Blaise Cendrars, and Ludwig Rubiner, the film theorist Ricciotto Canudo, and the artists Robert and Sonia Delaunay, Fernand Léger, and others. Herwarth Walden, the Berlin-based gallerist and publisher of the magazine Der Sturm, was also a member of this circle. In 1913, he showed works by the then-unknown Chagall at the First German Autumn Salon and gave him his first major solo exhibition in 1914.

What was the reason for Chagall’s early success? Like many young artists, he experimented with the styles of the Western avant-garde. What made him special was that he combined Fauvism and Cubism with Jewish motifs and Eastern European folklore. The result was a surreal world of motifs based on lived experience that made Chagall unique in his time. Floating people and animals, fiddlers on rooftops, giants, dwarfs, and hybrid beings populate his compositions, which are always painted in overwhelming colors. This was “surnaturel” (supernatural), as the writer Guillaume Apollinaire enthused on his first visit to Chagall’s studio. In just four years, Chagall had developed an unmistakable style. The strange worlds that Chagall created are not just poetically charged fairy tales but contain sharp criticism of the social conditions of his time.

Throughout his life, Marc Chagall reflected on his origins. Especially in his early works, he dealt with his childhood and youth in the confines of the Jewish quarter of Vitebsk. The small town, with its densely packed houses and distinctive church tower, is a frequently used motif. Paintings such as Sabbath, 1911, The Yellow Room, 1911, To Russia, Asses and Others, 1911, and Golgotha (The Crucifixion), 1912, tell stories of everyday Jewish life, of festivals and customs, of love and lust, but also of the accusations of ritual murder and pogroms that Chagall experienced in Vitebsk in 1905.

After the exhibition at the Sturm-Galerie in Berlin, Chagall traveled on to Vitebsk in the summer of 1914. He had planned to stay there for a short time, but the outbreak of the First World War prevented him from returning to Paris. He remained in Russia for eight years, alternating between Saint Petersburg, Vitebsk, and Moscow. His marriage to Bella Rosenfeld gave new impetus to Chagall’s art: The bliss of togetherness became a central motif. At the same time, he returned to familiar subjects: He painted his parents and siblings; in various self-portraits he questioned his own situation. He only ventured into painterly experiments with landscapes and lovers.

The promises of the October Revolution of 1917 initially aroused Chagall’s enthusiasm. In 1918, he was appointed Fine Arts Commissioner for the Vitebsk region, founded an art academy and became its director. He invited renowned artists such as El Lissitzky and Kazimir Malevich to teach at the academy. However, their different views on art led to dis- putes. Especially with Malevich, who stood for Suprematism—“abstract, pure painting”— there were discussions about the understanding of revolutionary art. When Chagall’s students switched to Malevich, Chagall left the academy and moved to Moscow. The exhibition at K20 presents a series of extraordinary works on paper that show how Chagall nevertheless experimented with abstract compositions over the years.

Chagall returned to Berlin in 1922 and then to Paris in 1923. He discovered that the works he had left behind had been sold or destroyed. He began to paint new versions, delighting collectors and gallerists. For the first time, he was able to lead a carefree life in the 1920s and 1930s. A new lightness and transparent application of paint characterize his paintings from this period. Motifs from Vitebsk are juxtaposed with new impressions from France. He declined an invitation from the Surrealists to join their group.

From this point on, it is almost impossible to discern a chronologically identifiable stylistic development in Chagall’s work. He repeated pictorial motifs and themes, created new contexts for them, and drew on earlier stylistic stages by referring to a theme.

In 1941, Chagall emigrated to New York. He did not return to France until 1948. He had long since established himself as an international artist, with numerous exhibitions and major commissions for stained-glass windows and decorative works in theaters and opera houses. In his late works from the 1960s to the 1980s, he also reacted sensitively to social developments and world events. Vitebsk and Paris increasingly became places of longing and Christ, the crucified Jew, a symbol of suffering.

The point of departure and occasion for the exhibition are three paintings by Marc Chagall, created in Paris before the First World War and now in the collection of the Kunstsammlung. The works in question are Self-Portrait with Brushes, 1909, The Violinist, 1911–14, and Rabbi with Lemon (Holiday), 1914, all three of which are among the artist’s early major works.

Curator: Susanne Meyer-Büser