Chagall

Organised by the museum and Caja Madrid Foundation and curated by Jean-Louis Prat, President of the Comité Chagall, this exhibition was the first major retrospective in Spain devoted to this Russian artist. The galleries of the museum displayed work from the artist’s early years and from his period in Paris, at that time capital of the avant-garde. In addition, there were sections on Chagall’s experience in Revolutionary Russia and in France up to the time of his enforced exile to the United States in 1941. The exhibition space of Caja Madrid Foundation focused on the artist’s American years and on his subsequent artistic evolution. Attention was paid to his use of biblical subjects and his relationship with contemporary poets. Also on display was works in other media such as sculptures and ceramics.

The MoMA and the Guggenheim in New York, the Kunsthaus Zurich, the Kunstmuseum Berne, the Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam, the Tel Aviv Museum of Art, and Tate Modern in London were among the twenty international museums that lent key works from their collections, to be seen alongside others from private collections. Particularly important was the loan from the Centre Pompidou in Paris, which is sending 20 works, and that from the artist’s family, which has been particularly generous in this respect.