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Spaightwood Galleries
Marc Chagall: The Image of the Artist
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Like Rembrandt, Kathe Kollwitz, and Picasso, Chagall is particularly fond of presenting an image of himself as artist in his art. His first print cycle included a group of etchings for his autobiography, Mein Leben (My Life), written and published in Berlin in 1922 after Chagall returned to western Europe after having been traped in Russia first by the First World War and then by the Communist Revoltion. Since then, he has included representations of himself in his art and representations of artists at their art with great frequency, portraying himself as an idealized figure, as a rooster, as a painter at his easel, as a half human-half animal (half goat-half-cow-half horse), as an artist in love, and in various other ways. Chagall's self-representations offer us a chance to see how the symbols that occur and recur in this images help us to understand many of his other works as well.
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Pour Vava / For Vava: The Artist at the Easel (Cramer 1992). Original tampon sec or scratch lithograph, 1984. This late work is part of a love note from Chagall to his wife, Vava (Valentina ). Edition: 10 signed and numbered impressions. Chagall coated a stone with black lithographic ink, scatched a drawing into the ink with a sharp-pointed stylus, laid the paper face-down upon the stone and rubbed the reverse until the ink transferred to the paper (see William M. Ivins, Jr. How Prints Look (Boston: Beacon Press, 1958, p. 17) This work was shown in Nice in a celebration of Chagall's long collaboration with Gerald Cramer (see Patrick Cramer, Marc Chagall–Gerald Cramer, Trente ans de travail et d'amitie [Geneve: Galerie patrick Cramer, 1994], p. 35, n. 142). Our impression is a signed artist's proof showing the artist—clearly Chagall—turning away from his easel, where he has just completed a portrait of himself with Vava against the backdrop of Nice. Very rare! Image size: 240x177mm. Price: $12,500.
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The house in my village (M. 283). Original color lithograph, 1960. 100 numbered impressions + c. 2000 unsigned impressions for Chagall Lithographe I. There were also 40 signed and numbered impressions reserved for the artist. Chagall has here redrawn one of his earliest etchings for Mein Leben / My Life (1922). Image size: 325x250mm. Price: $1000.
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Self Portrait: Ma Vie (M. 282). Original color lithograph, 1960. 100 numbered impressions + c. 2000 unsigned impressions for Chagall Lithographe I. There were also 40 signed and numbered impressions reserved for the artist. Illustrated in the 1988 Moscow Chagall Exhibition. Image size: 325x250mm. Price: $1,350.
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Après l'Hiver / After the Winter (M. 651). Original color lithograph, 1972. 75 signed & numbered impressions + 5000 unsigned impressions. With the coming of spring, the world suddenly bursts into bloom, and the artists looks upon his world of flowers, fishes, cows, women, and the village in which all are to be seen. Image size: 320x440mm. Price: $1,725.
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The painter and his double (M. 992). Original color lithograph, 1981. 15,000 unsigned impressions. This lithograph is partially reproduced on the cover of Chagall Lithographe V. Ours is an unsigned impression as taken from the deluxe art review, Derrière le Miroir. One of Chagall's most beautiful and important late lithographs. Image size: 300x410mm. Price: $1500.
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The artist inspired (M. 398). Original color lithograph, 1963. 40 signed & numbered + c. 2000 unsigned impressions for Chagall Lithographe Volume II. Illustrated in the 1987 Moscow Chagall Exhibition. Image size: 320x240mm. Price: $1,150.
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Devant Saint-Jeannet (M. 646). Original color lithograph, 1972. 50 signed & numbered impressions + 10 000 unsigned impressions for Ceramiques et Sculptures de Chagall. One of the most beautiful of Chagall's later lithographs, it features a rooster-headed artist painting a portrait of a pair of lovers, with the man portrayed with the horse's head (or perhaps the ass's head from A Midsummer Night's Dream?) so often featured in Chagall's works. Image size: 310x235mm. Price: $1,250.
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L'artiste II (M. 929). Original color lithograph, 1978. 50 signed & numbered impressions, of which this is n. 11/50. Chagall seems to suggest here (and elsewhere) that the artist needs at least two faces: the living human being who knows what human joys and sorrows are because he or she has experienced them and the artist, watching alertly as life unfolds all around them. A beautiful image in very good condition. Image size: 330x250mm. Price: $15,000.
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Double self-portrait at the circus (M. 577a). Original color lithograph, 1968. Edition: Some unfolded proofs + 10,000 unsigned impressions for Chagall Lithographs Volume III. Ours is an impression of the front cover with a complimentary signature by Chagall. One of a series of double portraits (almost all of which are idealized self-portraits), the work presents the artist as focused on the Equestrienne and on his palette simultaneously. Image size: 325x250mm. Price: SOLD.
Unsigned impression available for $1100.
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Double self-portrait I (M. 729a). Original color lithograph, 1974. Some unfolded proofs + 10,000 impressions signed in the stone for Chagall Lithographe Volume IV. Chagall then added additional colors and a rather extensive background scene, complete with lovers, a village, and a floating mother and child. This was published in an edition of 50 as The blue village. Image size: 325x250mm. Price: $875.
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Double self-portrait II (M. 729b). Original color lithograph, 1974. Some unfolded proofs + 10,000 unsigned impressions in the stone for Chagall Lithographe Volume IV. Image size: 325x250mm. Price: $875.
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The two profiles (M. 177). Original lithograph, 1957. 90 signed & numbered impressions plus 2500 unsigned impressions. Illustrated in Chagall Discovered From Russian and Private Collections, the catalogue of the 1987 Moscow Chagall Exhibition. Image size: 240x210mm. Price: $700.
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XXe Siecle, N. 34 (M . 608). Original color lithograph, 1970. 50 signed & numbered impressions plus 3000 unsigned impressions. This work seems to be an experiment in using overlays of color bands to make us focus on the process by which we puzzle out what the scene shows. At left, we can see a double portrait: two faces on one head. In the center, head facing towards the right, we see a profile of Chagall's familiar little calf/goat. Confronting it, in the next pink band to to the right, is a small a dog, but as our eye travels up the right side of the lithograph, we can see that the dog is sharing the space with a very large woman with large breasts pointing right while her head both looks back to the left and down to the lower right corner. In the blue band at the top, we can see a vilage full of small houses on a mountainous slope dotted with evergreen bushes or trees. The crossing bands of color—pink (vertical and horizontal), green (vertical, lower right), yellow (horizontal, upper center) and dark blue (horizontal, across the top)—complicate reading the scene and force us to act like scientists or detectives, searching the lithograph's phenomena in order to puzzle out its underlying realities. Image size: 300x240mm. Price: $1000.
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Spaightwood Galleries, Inc.
To purchase, call us at 1-800-809-3343 (508-529-2511 in Upton MA & vicinity) or send an email to sptwd@verizon.net. We accept AmericanExpress, DiscoverCard, MasterCard, and Visa.
For directions and visiting information, please call. We are, of course, always available over the web and by telephone (see above for contact information). Click the following for links to past shows and artists. For a visual tour of the gallery, please click here. For information about Andy Weiner and Sonja Hansard-Weiner, please click here. For a list of special offers currently available, see Specials.
Visiting hours: Saturday and Sunday noon to 6 pm and other times by arrangement. Please call to confirm your visit. Browsers and guests are welcome.
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