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Marc ChagallLe Cirque (The Circus), from Cirque, 19671967
1967
About the Item
Created in 1967, Marc Chagall’s Le Cirque (The Circus), from Cirque, 1967 is a color lithograph on Arches paper. This work is hand-signed by Marc Chagall (Vitebsk, 1887 - Saint-Paul, 1985) in pencil in the lower right margin. Numbered from the edition of 24 in the bottom left margin.
Marc Chagall’s Le Cirque (The Circus), from Cirque, 1967 is one of the eye-catching lithographs from Chagall’s Circus series. Publisher and art dealer Ambroise Vollard loved the circus and commissioned a production of circus graphics, for which Chagall executed a series of gouaches in the late 1920s. Chagall was a circus enthusiast himself, and his assistant Charles Sorlier noted Chagall’s childlike pleasure in watching the performers. When speaking of circus performers and clowns, Chagall said, “Their colors and make-up draw me towards other psychic deformations, which I dream of painting” (Mourlot 216). When Vollard died in 1939, the artist stopped working on the project, although circus motifs frequently appeared in his work after that time. Chagall eventually started working on the series again with encouragement from Tériade, who published the thirty-eight lithographs of the series in 1967. Capturing the dynamic energy of the circus and its lively performers, this work is a masterpiece any Chagall enthusiast would admire.
Marc Chagall’s Le Cirque (The Circus), from Cirque, 1967 captures the suspense and controlled chaos of a lion taming act. The entire background is overlaid in crisscrosses that evoke the bars of a cage, placing the viewpoint of the composition from within the cage itself. Rendered in Chagall’s iconic illustrative style, three figures of lions stand at varying heights towards the top and face the figure of the lion tamer in the lower left of the image. The two right lions are pigmented with a saturated fuchsia, while the other lion is colored in a deep cerulean that matches the hue of the lion tamer. The pedestal on which the central pink lion stands blends into the lines of the cage, making the lion appear to float among the crowd of spectators. Such visual ambiguity alludes to the way the thrill and risk of circus performances transpires from performers to audience, as the spectators share the excitement of the act. The female figure lying atop a yellow lion at the base of the composition adds another element of ambiguous and unresolved action. The rich and varied visual impact of Marc Chagall’s Le Cirque (The Circus), from Cirque, 1967 explores not only the danger of lion taming but, more broadly, the risk involved in circus entertainment.
Catalogue Raisonné:
Marc Chagall’s Le Cirque (The Circus), from Cirque, 1967 is fully documented and referenced in the below catalogue raisonnés and texts (copies will be enclosed as added documentation with the invoices that will accompany the sale of the work).
1. Gauss, Ulrike. Marc Chagall: The Lithographs. The Sorlier collection. Edited by Ulrike Gauss et. al. New York: Distributed Art Publishers, Inc., 1999. Listed and illustrated as catalogue raisonné no. 506.
2. Mourlot, Fernand. The Lithographs of Chagall, vol. II 1957-1962. Monté Carlo, 1960. Listed and illustrated as catalogue raisonné no. 506.
About the Framing:
Framed to museum-grade, conservation standards, Marc Chagall’s Le Cirque (The Circus), from Cirque, 1967 is presented in a complementary moulding and optical grade Plexiglas.
- Creator:Marc Chagall (1887 - 1985, French)
- Creation Year:1967
- Dimensions:Height: 20.38 in (51.77 cm)Width: 29.88 in (75.9 cm)
- Medium:
- Movement & Style:
- Period:
- Condition:
- Gallery Location:Palo Alto, CA
- Reference Number:
Marc Chagall
Described by art critic Robert Hughes as "the quintessential Jewish artist of the twentieth century," the Russian-French modernist Marc Chagall worked in nearly every artistic medium. Influenced by Symbolism, Fauvism, Cubism and Surrealism, he developed his own distinctive style, combining avant-garde techniques and motifs with elements drawn from Eastern European Jewish folk art.
Born Moishe Segal in 1887, in Belarus (then part of the Russian empire), Chagall is often celebrated for his figurative paintings, but he also produced stained-glass windows for the cathedrals of Reims and Metz, in France; for the United Nations, in New York; and for the Hadassah Hospital in Jerusalem, as well as book illustrations, stage sets, ceramics, tapestries and fine-art prints. Characterized by a bold color palette and whimsical imagery, his works are often narrative, depicting small-village scenes and quotidian moments of peasant life, as in his late painting The Flight into Egypt from 1980.
Before World War I, Chagall traveled between St. Petersburg, Paris and Berlin. When the conflict broke out, he returned to Soviet-occupied Belarus, where he founded the Vitebsk Arts College before leaving again for Paris in 1922. He fled to the United States during World War II but in 1947 returned to France, where he spent the rest of his life. His peripatetic career left its mark on his style, which was distinctly international, incorporating elements from each of the cultures he experienced.
Marc Chagall remains one of the past century’s most respected talents — find his art on 1stDibs.
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