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L’Opéra (M. 715) by Marc Chagall

Artwork by Marc Chagall, L’Opéra (M. 715)

Marc Chagall
L’Opéra (M. 715)

colour lithograph
signed and inscribed “Epreuve d’artiste” in the lower margin
34 x 24.5 ins ( 86.4 x 62.2 cms ) ( sight )

Auction Estimate: $35,000.00$25,000.00 - $35,000.00

Price Realized $31,200.00
Sale date: December 6th 2023

Provenance:
Private Collection, Toronto
Literature:
Charles Sorlier, “Chagall Lithographe: 1974-1979, 1984”, volume V, Monte Carlo, catalogue no. M.715
Simonetta Fraquelli, “Chagall: Modern Master”, London, 2013, page 44
Marc Chagall’s dreamlike picture pays tribute to the ceiling of the Paris Opéra, unveiled in September 1964, with its monumental panels commemorating contemporary and historical figures while evoking the transformative power and beauty of art. Graceful couples, shown dancing or embracing, defy gravity beneath the towering opera as musicians play in the lower register, reflecting one of Chagall’s early Jewish teachings that one can achieve communion with God through dance and music. At lower left, a cellist, whose body appears to have morphed into the instrument, recalls his 1939 painting “Le violoncelliste” and a gouache dating to 1964. As in Chagall’s fresco and stained glass windows at the synagogue of Hadassah Hospital in Jerusalem, colour conveys spiritual significance: red for energy and joy, blue for peace and infinity, and green to symbolize love. Ultimately, this lithograph perfectly encapsulates what Paris represented for the Belarusian–born French artist: “light, colour, freedom, the sun, the joy of living,” or what he referred to as “lumière– liberté”.

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Marc Chagall
(1887 - 1985)

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Marc Chagall was a a painter, lithographer, etcher and designer, born on July 7, 1887, in Vitebsk, Russia. He studied in Saint Petersburg and later with Léon Bakst. He moved to Paris in 1910, where he was introduced to Fauvism and Cubism while associating with Guillaume Apollinaire, Robert Delaunay, Fernand Léger, Amedeo Modigliani and André Lhote. In 1912 he participated in the Salon des Indépendants and the Salon d’Automne. His first solo exhibition was held in 1914 at Der Sturm gallery in Berlin.

Chagall visited Russia in the same year and, due to the outbreak of war, was prevented from returning to Paris. He settled in the province of Vitebsk, where he was appointed Commissar for Art in 1918 and founded the Vitebsk Popular Art School. After moving to Moscow, he executed his first murals for the State Jewish Chamber Theater. Following a brief stay in Berlin, he returned to Paris in 1923, where he met the French art dealer Ambroise Vollard. Chagall had his first retrospective in 1924 at the Galerie Barbazanges-Hodebert.

Along with other artists, such as Max Ernst and André Breton, Chagall fled France for the United States during World War II. The Museum of Modern Art in New York held a retrospective of his paintings and graphic works in 1946. Despite settling permanently in France in 1948, the large-scale commissions he received led him to travel extensively across Europe in the following years. Among these were windows for the synagogue of the Hadassah University Medical Center in Jerusalem, a ceiling for the Paris Opéra, a memorial window for the United Nations headquarters in New York and windows for the cathedral in Metz, France.

In 1973 the Musée Chagall was opened in Nice to house his Message Biblique (Biblical Message, 1956–1966), consisting of seventeen canvases on biblical themes. A major retrospective of his work was held at the Philadelphia Museum of Art in 1985, the same year that Chagall died in Saint-Paul-de-Vence, France.