209 - After MARC CHAGALL (Vitebsk, 1887 – Saint-Paul-de-Vence, 1985).

After MARC CHAGALL (Vitebsk, 1887 – Saint-Paul-de-Vence, 1985). “So I came forth of the Sea and sat down on the edge of an island in the moonshine...,” from the series “Four Tales from the Arabian Nights,” 1948. Lithograph, print no. 105/333. With certification stamp and SPADEM imprint. Dry-stamped signature in the lower left corner. Justified in pencil. Measurements: 38.5 x 32 cm (paper); 53 x 43 cm (frame). A work inspired by the literary world of “The Thousand and One Nights,” one of the cycles that best suited Marc Chagall’s lyrical and fantastical style. The composition is immersed in an intense blue atmosphere, dominated by the sea and a reclining female figure in the foreground, while swimmers and creatures seem to emerge or float among the waters. The absence of conventional perspective, the weightless nature of the figures, and the emotional use of color are essential elements in the artist’s work, for whom the visible world is continually transformed into a realm of dreams, memory, and poetry. Chagall explored the Eastern tales of *One Thousand and One Nights* in his celebrated project “Four Tales from the Arabian Nights,” published by Pantheon Books in New York in 1948; the original lithographs from that series also constituted one of his first major forays into color lithography and were honored that same year with the prize for graphic art at the Venice Biennale. Marc Chagall trained in St. Petersburg, where he studied from 1907 to 1910 under the tutelage of Nikolai Roerich. After this period, he moved to Paris, where he would reach full artistic maturity. He returned to Russia in 1914 and actively participated in the country’s cultural renewal, but his disputes with Malevich and the revolutionary demands to link political commitment with artistic work led him to leave for Germany in 1924. His Jewish heritage later forced him to emigrate to France and the United States, before finally settling in France at the end of World War II. In 1981, he received the Wolf Foundation Prize for the Arts in Jerusalem, and in 1997, a museum bearing his name was founded in Vitebsk. His work is currently represented in the Guggenheim, MoMA, and Metropolitan museums in New York; the Hermitage in St. Petersburg; the Centre Georges Pompidou in Paris; the Peggy Guggenheim Collection in Venice; the Fukuoka Art Museum in Japan; the Galleria Civica d’Arte Moderna e Contemporanea in Turin, the Kunsthaus in Zurich, the Ruspoli Palace in Rome, the Stedelijk in Amsterdam, the Tel Aviv Museum of Art, the Albertina in Vienna, and the Thyssen-Bornemisza, among many other public and private institutions around the world.