Chagall. A cry of freedom

Marc Chagall (1887-1985), whose life spanned two world wars and an exile, left a body of work deeply rooted in the history of the 20th century. The embodiment of uprootedness and migration, like so many figures in his oeuvre, the artist moved around the world at the mercy of the upheavals of his century, from his childhood in White Russia to France, from Germany to Palestine and from the United States to Mexico, before finally settling by the Mediterranean.

This exhibition, the result of a collaboration between La Piscine – Musée d’Art et d’Industrie André Diligent (Roubaix), Fundación MAPFRE and the Musée national Marc Chagall in Nice, offers a broad overview of his work in the light of the historical events that Chagall had to face and the stances he adopted in the face of them, in a proposal that represents the first complete reading of his work from this perspective: that of his unconditional idealism, his unshakeable belief in universal peace and the firm socio-political commitment that derives from it.

The work of the great Russian artist is thus presented to us in a new reading, a surprising revelation of the way in which his painting, which is as recognizable as it is fascinating, also bears a moving testimony to our times. 

Curators: Meret Meyer and Ambre Gauthier.