Today in Las Vegas Magazine

The Stuff of Dreams

Born Moishe Zakharovich Shagalov (Moishe Segal) in Vitebsk, Russian Empire, he was the eldest of eight children in a close-knit Jewish family. This happy, though impoverished period of his life, shows up throughout most of his work.

After learning the elements of drawing at school, he went to St. Petersburg in 1907, to further his studies. In 1910, he went to Paris to study art, partly in thanks to a wealthy patron. He spent a year and a half in Montparnasse and rubbed shoulders with avant-garde poets and up-and-coming painters like Soutine, Delaunay and Leger. While under the influence of the impressionist, post-impressionist and fauvist pictures he was exposed to in Paris museums and galleries. He gave up the usually somber theme he had used back home.

The years he spent in Paris is considered by most to be his best phase, reflected in such works as “Self-Portrait with Seven Fingers,” “I and the Village,” “Hommage a Apollinaire,” “Calvary,” “The Fiddler,” and “Paris Through the Window.” It is in these early paintings that would eventually reflect the style and characteristic of a Chagall work for the next 60 years; from his use of color to the use of whimsical, figurative elements.

He was often associated with the The School of Paris and his works reflect the resonance of fantasy and dreams. He experimented with various techniques – gouache, watercolors, pastels, ink, collage, engraving and lithography. One of his most famous quotes, “I work in whatever medium likes me at the moment,” attests to this.

He moved to Moscow in 1920, but moved back to Paris three years later. It was during this time that he published his memoirs, “My Life,” which was accompanied by 26 illustrations done in dry-point etching, depicting scenes and figures in his naïve-realistic style. He also lived briefly in New York, in 1941, where he designed costumes and stage decorations for a ballet performance of Igor Stravinsky’s “The Firebird,” but eventually moved back to France in 1946, a few years after the death of his first wife, Bella.

While his paintings don’t rate as one of the most expensive such as those by Picasso, Van Gogh, Monet, Pollock et al, they are still considered fairly substantial in value.

In 1996, Chagall’s “Les Amoureux” was snapped-up for $4.2 million. In 2006, Sothebys auction, a 1978 Chagall biblical scene, “Paradise,” sold for $2.5 million. Just recently, “Les Tournesols,” also sold for $2.5 million.

This is the eighth Chagall Exhibit by Centaur Art Galleries in 27 years. The last one was held two years ago in March 2006. Richard Perry, Centaur Art Galleries CEO adds, “This exhibit was three years in the making. We have the complete set of 105 etchings made by Chagall over a 25-year span, from 1934 to 1959, for the Bible, after Chagall made three trips to the Holy Land; and 28 woodcuts from Poemes, two of the rarest of all his graphic works.”

The current exhibit highlights original graphic works of art including etchings, lithographs, woodcuts and posters. And will feature more than 300 masterworks by the greatest poetic artist of the 20th century. This is the largest exhibition of Marc Chagall’s work ever shown or on sale in a private gallery.

Perhaps Chagall says it best, “…all my joys, all my sorrows… everything that has crossed my path, throughout the years: births, deaths, marriages, flowers, animals, birds, poor working people, my parents, lovers at night, the Prophets from the Bible, on the street, in my home, in the Temple, in the sky. And, as I grow older, the tragedy of life that is inside us and all about us.” -Rachel M. Sugay

Dreams of Marc Chagall – March 22 – May 18, 2008 Centaur Art Galleries, Fashion Show Mall – Main Level. 3200 Las Vegas Boulevard South, Suite 1040. 737-1234. Open daily, 10 a.m.-9 p.m., Monday – Saturday; 11 a.m.-7 p.m., Sunday. www.centaurgalleries.com