Printer: Mourlot (1 of 1,500 Editions)

Dimensions: 70 x 53 cm 

Condition: Very good condition

Frame: Charcoal 

Description: By the early 1960s, Marc Chagall had become one of the world’s most celebrated artists, and Galerie Maeght in Paris was the obvious setting for a major exhibition of his work. This original lithographic poster, featuring L’Oiseau Vert (The Green Bird), was issued for his 1962 exhibition and printed by the Mourlot studio, whose craftsmen worked closely with many of the great artists of the twentieth century.

The image brings together many of the themes that run through Chagall’s work. A protective green bird hovers above two lovers embraced beneath the branches of a tree, drawing on the folklore, memories and symbolism that inspired him throughout his life. However dreamlike the scene appears, it reflects subjects that remained deeply personal to Chagall, from love and family to faith and his childhood in what is now Belarus.

Rich in colour and beautifully printed, this is much more than an exhibition announcement. It captures the warmth, imagination and gentle optimism that have made Chagall’s work so enduringly loved, and remains one of the most memorable posters from his long association with Galerie Maeght. 

Artist: Marc Chagall (1887-1985) was a Russian-French-Jewish painter, book illustrator, ceramicist, stage-set designer, tapestry maker and undoubtedly one of the most influential modern artists of the 20^th century. He was also an unparalleled colourist. In 1954, Picasso said, ‘When Matisse dies, Chagall will be the only painter alive who understands what colour really is.’

Most artists would begin the lithograph process with a black outline and then load subsequent plates with several colours to produce a clean coloured image. But Chagall would pour layer upon layer of colour into plates to create lithographs so dense in paint that they resembled paintings.

In 1948, Chagall, aged 61, was an internationally successful artist. He had lived through two world wars, the Russian Revolution and witnessed constant persecution of Jewish people. He had escaped occupied France with his family to live in New York during World War II but had returned to Paris a widower and in search of new beginnings. He teamed up with Charles Sorlier, one of the master lithographers at Mourlot studios and began to experiment. Chagall wrote several years later in 1960: ‘When I held a lithographic stone or a copperplate in my hand I thought I was touching a talisman. It seemed to me that I could put all my joys and sorrow in it…Everything that touched my life through the years, births, deaths, weddings, flowers, animals, birds, the poor workers, my parents, lovers in the night, the biblical prophets on the street at home, in the temple and in heaven. And as I grew older, the tragedy of life within us and around us.’

Chagall worked right up until his death in France in 1985, aged 97. He was the last surviving master of European Modernism.