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Spaightwood Galleries, Inc.
120 Main Street, Upton MA 01568-6193; 800-809-3343
Marc Chagall and the Village
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Many of Chagall's works present life and love against the backdrop of a village, sometimes "my village," sometimes "the village," sometimes the backdrop is Mediterranean Nice, but whichever village we see, it is always an offshoot of that arhetypal village in which Chagall and his family and generations of people like those in his family are born, live, love, joy, suffer, and die. After the rise of the Nazis, Chagall did a number of works showing Christ crucifed against the backdrop of a Russian or French village, a picture of what the world was capable of doing to a nice Jewish boy; sometimes lovers fly through the air on the wings of roosters or birds, soaring above the village in which they normally live out their lives. If Paris is the site of joy, the village is where everthing life offers can be tasted.
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The village (M. 199). Original lithograph, 1957. 90 signed & numbered impressions plus 6000 unsigned proofs impressions for Jacques Lassaigne's Chagall (Maeght Editeur, 1957), from which our impression comes. In this reminiscence Chagall presents his younger self looking out over his Russian village as though casessing it. Image size: 197x200mm. Price: $750.
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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: $975.
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The 'Antilopa' Passengers (M. 572). Original color lithograph, 1969. 75 signed & numbered impressions + 12,000 unsigned impressions for XXe Siecle: Hommage a Marc Chagall. Illustrated in the 1988 Moscow Chagall Exhibition. The composition is based upon a Russian story, The Little Golden Calf, by Ilf and Petrov. Image size: 320x240mm. Price: $975.
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Hommage à Julien Cain. Original color lithograph, 1968. Edition unknown (c. 1500? impressions). The lithograph was printed at Atelier Fernand Mourlot, Paris. Cain was a member of the Institut de France and a friend of Chagall. He wrote the introduction to volume one of the catalogue raisonné of Chagall's lithographs, Chagall Lithographe I (1960). With a rural village as backdrop a painter at his easel is engaged in painting a picture of the sun by the light of the moon while a group of villagers watch curiously. At right, apparently ignored by everyone else, a fully-clothed man embraces a rather statuesque nude. Image size: 173x237mm. Uncommon. Price: $1500.
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The umbrella and the clock (M. 192a). Original lithograph, 1957. 6000 unsigned proofs impressions for Jacques Lassaigne's Chagall (Maeght Editeur, 1957), from which our impression comes. This lithograph served as the front cover of the book. In a rural landscape, a very unself-consciouos nude couple at left (perhaps Adam and Eve in Paradise?) accompanied by a horse and a bird are ignoring a large tree at right. Signed in the stone. A clean example in good condition. Image size: 197x200mm. Price: $850.
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The umbrella and the clock (M. 192b). Original lithograph, 1957. 90 signed & numbered impressions plus 6000 unsigned proofs impressions for Jacques Lassaigne's Chagall (Maeght Editeur, 1957), from which our impression comes. This lithograph served as the rear cover of the book. In a rural landscapea hand with an umbrella comes out of a clock, perhaps a reminder of the memento mori which offered the title to one of Poussin's most famous paintings, "Et in Arcadia ego," in which a group of shepherds in a pastoral landscape are pondering a tomb realizing that even in Arcadia there is death (and Death). See the classic essay by Erwin Panofsky, "Et in Arcadia Ego: Poussin and the Elegiac Tradition," in his Meaning in the Visual Arts (NY: Doubleday Anchor Books, 1957), 295-320. Slight wear top center over the tip of the umbrella, but mostly quite clean and in good condition. Image size: 197x200mm. Price: $750.
We also have a more soiled version available for $450.
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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 artist 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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Mystical Crucifixion (D.L.M. 250, n. 27-28). Original color lithograph, 1950. c. 1000 impressions signed in the stone; published in the deluxe art review, Derriere le Miroir in 1950. Chagall began doing paintings of the Crucifixion after the Nazis came to power, perhaps as a reminder that there were times in the past when the the full power of the state was turned against Jewish rabbis and their followers. It may be significant that this is one of the first two color lithographs that Chagall drew directly on the stone and that it came shortly after Israel's war for independence led to a troubled peace and six years before the Arab states would try again to destroy Israel. Identified in the 1982 catalogue raisonné of Derrière le Miroir as an original lithograph and mentioned as one of Chagall's first two solo efforts at color lithography in a 1977 memoir by Aimé Maeght, Chagall’s dealer from 1950 on and the one who sent him to Mourlot’s lithography workshop to learn how to do all of the color stones for his lithographs, thereby starting a collaborative relationship with Charles Sorlier, master-printer at Mourlot, with whom he would work until his death in 1986. During the fall and winter of 2008-09, another impression of this lithograph was on display at the Museum of Biblical Art (Broadway and 61st Street in New York City) in an exhibition entitled Chagall's Bible: Mystical Storytelling, a title so good I wish I had thought of it first. Although our print is not in the show (because it is on the walls in our show), the photograph of this work included in the brochure for MOBIA's show, provided by us, is of our impression (as were three other photographs in their brochure). MOBIA's wall label suggests that the woman with the female child on the right of the composition were Chagall's first wife, Bella, and his daughter, Ida. No separate signed & numbered edition exists; with the ceterfold as always. Image size: 360x520mm. Price: SOLD.
Impression without complimentary signature available. Price: $1625.
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The village (M. 917). Original color lithograph, 1977. 15,000 unsigned impressions. Ours is a signed impression as taken from the deluxe art review, Derriere le Miroir. Image size: 380x560mm. Price: $3,750.
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Reverie (M. 605). Original color lithograph, 1969. 75 signed & numbered impressions + 5000 unsigned impressions published in 1969 in the deluxe art review, Derriere le Miroir. The work offers a brooding vision of the dream state (or reverie) that we fall into when the imagination is freed to play. Our impression has a complimentary signature by Chagall and the usual centerfold. Image size: 380x560mm. Price: SOLD.
Also available unsigned for $1725.
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The painter in front of the village (M. 603b). Original color lithograph, 1969. 75 signed & numbered impressions + 5000 unsigned impressions published in 1969 in the deluxe art review, Derriere le Miroir. Our impression has a complimentary signature by Chagall. Image size: 380x280mm. Price: $3850.
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The painter in front of the village (M. 603b). Original color lithograph, 1969. 75 signed & numbered impressions + 5000 unsigned impressions published in 1969 in the deluxe art review, Derriere le Miroir. Image size: 380x280mm. Price: $1100.
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The village by night (D.L.M. 250, n. 27-28). Original color lithograph, 1950. c. 1000 impressions signed in the stone. This is one of the first two color lithographs that Chagall drew directly on the stone. Included in the 1982 catalogue raisonné of Derriere le Miroir and mentioned as one of Chagall’s first two solo efforts at color lithography in a 1977 memoir by Aimee Maeght, Chagall’s dealer from 1950 on, and the one who sent him to Mourlot’s lithography workshop to learn how to do all of the color stones for his lithographs, thereby starting a collaborative relationship with Charles Sorlier, master-printer at Mourlot, with whom Chagall would work until his death in 1986. No separate signed & numbered edition exists. Image size: 256x196mm. Price: $1250.
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Bay of Nice (Sorlier p. 124). Color lithograph by Charles Sorlier for a Chagall exhibition at the Galerie Ponchettes in Nice in 1970. The image is taken from the right side of The Bay of Angels, an original lithograph by Chagall executed in 1967. 3000 impressions with text on poster paper plus 100 proofs with text on Arches paper. The entire poster is present but part of the text was covered by the mat when it was photographed. Image size: 760x540mm. Price: $1250.
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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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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.
Spaightwood Galleries is located at 120 Main St (aka Highway 140) in Upton MA at the corner of Main St and Maple Ave in a rehabilitated Unitarian Church. 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: Noon to six Saturdays and Sundays; other times by arrangement.
Please call to confirm your visit. Browsers and guests are welcome.
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