Marc Chagall
Mann mit Buch, 1922/23

Alfred Flechtheim and Marc Chagall

The pictorial world of the so-called painter-poet Marc Chagall was conditioned by his native Russia. His motifs reflect the world in which he lived, his homeland and Judaism, as well as recurrent themes such as the circus and theatre in a mystical and expressive manner. After leaving Russia Chagall was greatly inspired by Paris at the beginning of the 20^th century. In his painterly style he combines the avant-garde influences of the period into his own, very individual form of expression, characterised by the pronounced use of colour and a lean towards the mystical. Chagall expressed this in his many paintings but also used in his graphic works, tapestries and stained-glass windows.

Works by Chagall were confiscated and removed from museums in Essen, Frankfurt, Berlin and Mannheim during the ‘Degenerate Art’ campaign in 1937. In the face of persecution by the National Socialists and the war, the artist worked on an increasing number of biblical themes. Chagall was forced to flee and went to the south of France where he made the decision to emigrate to the United States in 1941. After World War II the painter returned to the Côte d’Azur in France where he created an extensive number of works late in life.

Alfred Flechtheim first exhibited works by Marc Chagall in his gallery in Düsseldorf in 1919 and included the artist in another six group exhibitions. A solo exhibition with 100 watercolours commissioned by Ambroise Vollard to illustrate fables by Jean de La Fontaine followed in 1930, for which Chagall travelled to Berlin for the opening. The exhibition had been taken over from the Bernheim-Jeune gallery in Paris, having previously been shown at the gallery Le Centaure in Brussels.