Marc Chagall’s America Windows Open to the Public

Marc Chagall. America Windows, 1977. A gift of Marc Chagall, City of Chicago, and the Auxiliary Board, commemorating the American bicentennial in memory of Mayor Richard J.Daley. © 2010 Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York / ADAGP, Paris.

Have you ever seen the classic 80s movie Ferris Bueller’s Day Off? (“Anyone? Anyone?”) If so, try to recall that famous montage, showing Ferris, Sloan and Cameron spending part of their afternoon at the art museum. You might recognize the magnificent stained glass windows (pictured above) from that popular scene in the film. Over the last five years, visitors of the Art Institute of Chicago (AIC) may have been disappointed to learn that Marc Chagall’s America Windows were removed from display — until today.

On November 1, following an intensive period of conservation treatment and archival research, Marc Chagall′s stunning stained glass windows returned on public display. In the following video, go behind the scenes at the AIC and learn about the history, conservation and reinstallation of Marc Chagall’s America Windows.

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Marc Chagall was one of the 20th Century’s greatest Masters, creating unique works in virtually every artistic medium–paintings, book illustrations, stained glass, stage sets, ceramics, tapestries and fine art prints.

In our more than 40 year history, Park West Gallery has built one of the most extensive collections of Chagall works in existence. The collection includes examples of Chagall’s most important works, including The Bible, The Story of the Exodus, Fables of Fontaine, L’Odyssée, and Daphnis & Chloe, among others. The Chagall lithographs in the Park West Gallery collection reflect the artist’s innovation and expertise in the art of lithography and feature many of his most popular themes, including Biblical themes and Circus themes.

The Park West Gallery Chagall collection ranks among the world’s largest and finest in quality. If you are a collector, enthusiast or interested in learning more about the artist, please visit the Park West Gallery Chagall website at www.parkwest-chagall.com.

Happy Birthday Marc Chagall!

“In our life there is a single color, as on an artist’s palette, which provides the meaning of life and art. It is the color of love.”
– Marc Chagall (July 7, 1887 – March 28, 1985)

Marc Chagall, one of the greatest and least understood master artists of the 20^th century, was born Moyshe Segal in Vitebsk, Russia on July 7, 1887. In honor of this modern master’s birthday, Park West Gallery is proud to announce the launch of its new Marc Chagall website.

The website features the Park West Chagall Collection of artwork and includes examples of Chagall’s most important graphic works such as The Bible, The Story of the Exodus, Fables of Fontaine, L’Odyssee and Daphnis & Chloe. The Chagall lithographs featured represent the artist’s innovations and expertise in lithography, for which he is universally known. His most popular themes, including Biblical and Circus, are also featured on the site.

“Chagall was one of the most distinctive and unique artists in history,” says Park West Gallery Director, Morris Shapiro. “His aim was to compete with the beauty of nature and in this way he created his own artistic ‘nature.’ He’s also one of the least understood artists of the modern masters. I hope that our new site will allow people to go deeper into Chagall’s life and work and gain new perspectives to appreciate both.”

Visit Park West Gallery’s Marc Chagall website at www.parkwest-chagall.com
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Related Links:

• The Park West Gallery Chagall Collection
• Park West Gallery Artist Biographies: Marc Chagall
• Other Favorite Park West Gallery Artist Microsites

Picasso and the Avant-Garde in Paris

“Three Musicians” (1921) by Pablo Picasso, Philadelphia Museum of Art.
©2010 Estate of Pablo Picasso/Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York.

PHILADELPHIA — A new exhibit at the Philadelphia Museum of Art focuses on Modern Masters including Picasso, Braque and Chagall–commonly known as the School of Paris. Through April 25, Picasso and the Avant-Garde in Paris will feature 214 paintings, sculptures, and works on paper.  

From the museum website:

“The exhibition follows the trajectory of Picasso’s career from his early experiments with abstraction to his pioneering role in the development of Cubism, as well as his dialogue with Surrealism and other important art movements in the ensuing decades. The exhibition will also explore the important role that the city of Paris played in the history of modern art during the first half of the twentieth century, when artists from around the world followed Picasso’s example and moved to the French capital. It will include works by expatriate artists like Marc Chagall, Jacques Lipchitz, Patrick Henry Bruce, and Man Ray, who collectively formed a vibrant, international avant-garde group known, for posterity, as the School of Paris.”

For more information on this exhibit, please visit www.philamuseum.org
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Park West Gallery has become one of the longest running and largest dealers of Pablo Picasso graphic works internationally. Our current collection, both archived and actively offered, includes over one thousand five hundred works, including drawings and mixed media unique works, etchings, aquatints, linoleum cuts, lithographs, and ceramics, all rigorously authenticated, guaranteed and selected based on the highest quality and value.

Please visit picasso.parkwestgallery.com to learn more

Art Gallery Finds Rare Chagall Painting at Auction

LONDON — The Ben Uri Jewish Museum of Art knows firsthand that art auctions can offer not only superb finds but bargain prices as well. The small London art gallery paid roughly $43,000 – a fraction of its estimated $1.6 million value – for a rare Marc Chagall painting at a Paris auction last fall.

The exceptional painting, Apocalypse in Lilac, Capriccio (1945), is one of only 10 Chagall works of art created between 1938 and 1945 to feature a Jewish Christ. Gallery representatives recognized the work in the auction catalog “as a missing piece of Chagall’s wartime imagery,” telling the press recently, “this previously unknown work is Chagall’s deeply personal expression of horror and mourning for the Jewish civilization almost wiped out by the Nazis alongside and merged with grief for his late wife Bella, who died eight months earlier.”

The Ben Uri gallery was definitely in the right place at the right time, admitting that they may not have gotten such a bargain if the world’s big galleries knew about the painting’s existence (oh well, it seems Park West Gallery wasn’t the only one to miss out on this one).

Apocalypse will be unveiled at a public exhibition on Jan. 8 in London.

[Source]

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Related Links:

• Chagall and the Mediterranean
• Paris Opera Unveils Marc Chagall Ceiling
• Marc Chagall | Life and Love: Prints, Drawings and Paintings
• The Park West Gallery – Marc Chagall Collection
• Park West Gallery Artist Biographies: Marc Chagall 

Marc Chagall | Life and Love: Prints, Drawings and Paintings

Marc Chagall, known as the “poet-painter” of the 20th century, lived to be embraced as one of the most influential artists of all time. The Park West Gallery collection is one of the world’s finest, with artwork by masters of art history, including Marc Chagall.
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“Whenever I bent over the lithography stone it was as though I was touching a talisman. It seemed as though I could pour all my sadness and joys into it.” ~Marc Chagall

ISTANBUL — For the very first time in Turkey, the works of outstanding 20th-century artist Marc Chagall are on view for art enthusiasts. Life and Love: Prints, Drawings and Paintings at the Pera Museum showcases 160 works by Chagall including prints, drawings and paintings selected from the rich collection of The Israel Museum, Jerusalem.

The exhibition Life and Love: Prints, Drawings and Paintings showcases a unique selection that reveals Chagall’s multi-faceted personality and vivid world of imagination. Apart from drawings that reflect the artist’s life and his love for his first wife Bella, his illustrations for the Holy Book and for literary works such as The Fables of La Fontaine, and Gogol’s Dead Souls are brought together in the exhibition. Representing his signature style, themes such as Russian folklore, Jewish traditions and lovers stand out in Chagall’s works.

Life and Love: Prints, Drawings and Paintings is now on view through January 24, 2010

For more information, please visit en.peramuzesi.org.tr

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Related Links:

• Chagall and the Mediterranean
• The Park West Gallery – Marc Chagall Collection
• Paris Opera Unveils Marc Chagall Ceiling
• Park West Gallery Artist Biographies: Marc Chagall 

Chagall and the Mediterranean

Marc Chagall, known as the “poet-painter” of the 20th century, lived to be embraced as one of the most influential artists of all time. Started in the 1960s, the Park West Gallery collection is one of the world’s finest, with artwork by masters of art history, including Marc Chagall.
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PISA – The Palazzo Blu exhibition Chagall and the Mediterranean is a show of  masterpieces by the Belorussian artist. This is the first of a three-year exhibit series dedicated to the great 20th century artists and their relationship with Mediterranean tradition, light and culture. 150 works by Marc Chagall will be on exhibit including paintings, sculptures, ceramics and lithographs all depicting the seascapes of France, Greece and all the way down to the Promised Land.

The exposition is divided into five sections, each with a different theme – Côte d’Azur is a series of paintings including Music and Lovers at St. Paul; Greece demonstrates the artist’s discovery of classical Mediterranean civilization; The Bible depicts the Kotel in Jerusalem and the Crucifying of Christ; and two sections are dedicated to his sculptures and ceramics (with corresponding gouache) and collages (a variety created using different materials).

Chagall and the Mediterranean is on view through Jan. 17, 2010.

For more information, please visit the exhibition website www.chagallpisa.it
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Related Links:

• The Park West Gallery – Marc Chagall Collection
• Paris Opera Unveils Marc Chagall Ceiling
• Park West Gallery Master Sites: Pablo Picasso
• Park West Gallery Master Sites: Salvador Dali
• Park West Gallery Artist Biographies: Marc Chagall 

Today in Art History – Paris Opera Unveils Marc Chagall Ceiling

Started in the 1960s, the Park West Gallery collection is one of the world’s finest, and includes artwork by masters of art history like Marc Chagall, Pablo Picasso and Salvador Dali. Browse artwork from the Park West Gallery Seasonal Sale >>

On September 23, 1964…
The Paris Opera unveils a stunning new ceiling painted as a gift by
Belorussian-born artist Marc Chagall, who spent much of his life in France.
The ceiling was typical of Chagall’s masterpieces – childlike in its apparent
simplicity yet luminous with color and evocative of the world
of dreams and the subconscious.  [Source: History.com]

MARC CHAGALL is one of the foremost artists of the Twentieth Century. Many of the greatest writers have extolled the universality and exceptional character of Marc Chagall’s art. They have found a kindred spirit in Chagall as epic poet and one of the greatest artists of all time rolled into one.

Aside from an astonishing oeuvre of paintings, monotypes, linocuts, woodcuts, pochoirs, lithographs and etchings that he created during his lifetime, Marc Chagall also created works of equal importance in stained glass, ceramics, costumes and stage sets. He turned again and again to the recurring themes of lovers, musicians, dancers, the artist in the studio, still lifes, animals, angels, and prophets and memories of his Russian Jewish heritage.

The themes that Chagall used in his work throughout his career were his refuge from the world. He once said, “If there were a hiding place in my pictures I would slip into it…”

Learn more at Park West Gallery Artist Biographies >>

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Related Links:

• View selections from the Park West Gallery – Chagall Collection
• Park West Gallery Master Sites: Pablo Picasso
• Park West Gallery Master Sites: Salvador Dali
• BBC1 Announces Modern Masters Arts Series
• Park West Gallery Artist Biographies: Marc Chagall 

Matisse, Picasso, and Modern Art in Paris

For over 40 years, Park West Gallery has been a reliable resource for the artworks of Modern Masters, including Pablo Picasso, Marc Chagall and Henri Matisse. Park West recently launched a microsite dedicated to Pablo Picasso and his artwork -  visit picasso.parkwestgallery.com to learn more.

WINCHESTER, VIRGINIA — Works by the leading masters of modern art are on display at the Museum of the Shenandoah Valley (MSV) in the exhibition, Matisse, Picasso, and Modern Art in Paris. The show is part of a statewide tour that marks the first time since the late 1940s that selections from the collection of T. Catesby Jones (1880–1946) — a prominent collector from Virginia — will be reunited. More than 50 works gifted by T. Catesby Jones to the collections of the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts and the University of Virginia Art Museum will be included.

Among the works displayed will be Pablo Picasso’s Woman with Kerchief (1906), Henri Matisse’s portrait of Lorette (1917), and a Cubist collage by Juan Gris. Other artists represented in the exhibition include Georges Braque, Marc Chagall, Raoul Dufy, Jacques Lipchitz, André Masson, and Georges Rouault.

The display encompasses many of the key artists, innovative styles, and central themes that emerged and developed during a crucial period in the history of modern art. The exhibition tells the story of new modernist movements before and during World War I, cubism, surrealism, and the transformative World War II period when many of the best-known French modernists fled Paris for New York.

Matisse, Picasso, and Modern Art in Paris is currently on view until November 29, 2009

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Related Links:

• More information about Matisse, Picasso, and Modern Art in Paris
• Visit the Park West Gallery Pablo Picasso website
• Picasso’s Chateau Opens to the Public for the First Time
• BBC1 Announces Modern Masters Arts Series