Private view: Wednesday 13th June, 6.00 - 8.00 pm

Connaught Brown is mounting an important and vibrant exhibition of works on paper by Marc Chagall covering sixty years of the artist’s career. The seven-week show also forms part of Master Drawings Week 2007, this year opening on 29th June, running through the weekend and ending on 6th July.

Characterising the oeuvre of such an extraordinarily inventive and productive artist is not easy. Influenced by Belarusian folk-life, Biblical stories from his Jewish heritage and imaginative and earthly themes, he is best described as an artist of universal appeal who used both autobiographical and fantastical sources for his art, culminating in a personal and unique imagery that is often suffused with exquisite poetic inspiration. .

There are two key factors in this exhibition that demonstrate the importance of Chagall’s works on paper to his oeuvre. The first is an exceptional employment of colour - one of the greatest metaphors for the embodiment of light, life and love - that saturates the paper and infuses the paintings with an overwhelming joie de vivre. The second is a spontaneity and lightness of touch, sometimes absent in his oil painting, that demonstrates a certain freedom and mastery of technique. .

Chagall brought back the forgotten dimension of metaphor into French formalism and there have been numerous readings of the motifs that dominate his oeuvre. Whatever Chagall meant by these visual consistencies, he was certain of his belief in art as poetry, art as entertainment, art as a source of visual pleasure and, above all, art as having a spiritual function in society. This exhibition and accompanying catalogue will illustrate both the familiar and lesser-known themes of Chagall’s work. .

These works - complex, witty, autobiographical and an unabashed celebration of romantic love – bring all the elements of Chagall’s personality together, providing a unique opportunity to view the range and complexity of one of the best known, but perhaps least understood, artists of the twentieth century. .

The works can be viewed on our website www.connaughtbrown.co.uk. For further information please contact the gallery on 020 7408 0362 or email us at [email protected].

Opening hours: Monday – Friday: 10 am – 6 pm Saturday: 10 am – 12.30 pm.

Connaught Brown
2 Albemarle Street
London W1S 4HD
t: 020 7408 0362 f: 020 7495 3137
[email protected] www.connaughtbrown.co.uk