Marc Chagall: The Madonna of the Village (1938-42)

“During the years of the Jewish holocaust, Chagall painted numerous religious scenes taken from the Christian tradition…In 1940, while living temporarily in the Provencal town of Gordes, to which he had fled to escape the menacing Nazi advance through Holland and Belgium towards France, he continued working on this ambitious canvas and repainted some of…

Chaim Soutine: View of Cagnes (c.1925)

“Someone Has Killed Soutine!” Chaim Soutine once horrified his neighbours in Paris by keeping an animal carcass in his studio to model for his painting called, not surprisingly, Carcass of Beef. The stench drove them to send for the police, whom Soutine promptly lectured on the relative importance of art over hygiene. There’s a story…

Marc Chagall: Art and Revolution

New Exhibit at The Jewish Museum Diane Cole, in her article “Chagall The Revolutionary – Exhibit on his short-lived People’s Art School in Vitebsk suggests a rethinking of his work”, says the following: “The Russian Jewish artist Marc Chagall (1887-1985) made famous the steeples and rooftops of his native Vitebsk, along with the ebullient lovers,…