Mostra Chagall Mantova | Presentation

Opening in Mantua on September 5, 2018, in conjunction with Festivaletteratura, is the exhibition on the work of Marc Chagall (Vitebsk, July 7, 1887 – Saint-Paul-de-Vence, March 28, 1985). Chagall, along with Picasso and Robert Delaunay, was possibly the inspiration of for the largest number of poets, writers, and militant critics in the twentieth century.

The exhibition will showcase over 130 works, including the complete cycle of the seven monumental murals that Chagall created in 1920 for the State Jewish Chamber Theater in Moscow: these remarkable works represent the most revolutionary and least nostalgic output of the artist's entire career.

The large-scale paintings are an exceptional loan from the State Tretyakov Gallery of Moscow, and have rarely been shown in Italy: they were exhibited in Milan in 1994, and in Rome in 1999, after the 1992 show at the Guggenheim in New York, and the 1993 show at The Art Institute of Chicago.

By focusing on these seven works, the exhibition plan offers a reconstruction of the environment of the Jewish Chamber Theater, that is, a "box" with a surface area of about 40 square meters, for which Chagall created, in addition to the murals, the decorations for the ceiling, the theater curtain, the costumes, and the set designs for three theatrical works.

A selection of Marc Chagall's most emblematic works (paintings and watercolors), ones he made in the period from 1911 to 1918, will accompany the immersive installation of the Jewish Chamber Theater, along with a series of etchings made between 1923 and 1939. These include the illustrations for Gogol's Dead Souls, for La Fontaine's Fables, and for the Bible. The purpose of including the prints in this exhibition is to show the close relationship between art and literature in the period of the avant-gardes.

The exhibition, curated by Gabriella Di Milia, in collaboration with the State Tretyakov Gallery of Moscow, is promoted by the City of Mantua and organized and produced with the publishing house Electa.

Marc Chagall. As in Painting, So in Poetry