Printer: Mourlot (1 of 5,000 Editions) 

Dimensions: 75 x 49 cm 

Condition: Very good condition

Frame: Oak

Description: Tériade was one of the most important publishers of the twentieth century, although his name is far less familiar than the artists whose work he helped bring to life. This original exhibition poster was published for the 1973 Hommage à Tériade exhibition at the Grand Palais in Paris, celebrating the man who worked with artists including Picasso, Matisse, Miró and Chagall to produce some of the finest illustrated books ever published.

No artist enjoyed a closer relationship with Tériade than Marc Chagall. Together they created celebrated editions of The Bible and Daphnis and Chloé, combining Chagall’s unmistakable imagery with Tériade’s commitment to exceptional printing and design.

The image reproduced here is unmistakably Chagall. Lovers, flowers and familiar symbols drift effortlessly through the composition, creating the dreamlike world that became his trademark. The poster is as much a tribute to one of the twentieth century’s great publishers as it is to the artist himself, reminding us that some of the most remarkable works on paper are the result of creative partnerships.

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.