The Great Atlantic Map Works Gallery

Marc Chagall was born in Vitebsk, Russia (now Belarus) in 1887 but spent most of his adult life in France, having first moved to Paris in 1910. “The Earth that nourished the roots of my art was Vitebsk, but my art needed Paris as much as a tree needs water. I had no other reason for leaving my home.”

At the end of his life, the artist had created more than one thousand prints - mainly lithographs and etchings. He died at the age of 98 on March 28, 1985 in Saint-Paul in France. His works are sought after by art lovers and museums all over the world. Chagall is considered as one of the greatest artists of the 20th century.

The Bible Series of 1956 & 1960 were two of several series of major illustrative lithographs undertaken by the Russian-born painter and designer during his years in France. Marc Chagall’s work was dominated by two rich sources of imagery; memories of the Jewish life and folklore of his early years in Russia; and the Bible.

“Ever since my earliest youth I have been fascinated by the Bible. I have always believed that it is the greatest source of poetry of all time... The Bible is an echo of nature, and this I have endeavoured to transmit.... In art everything is possible, so long as it is based on love.”

The illustrations for the Bible were commissioned in 1930 by Vollard, a Paris art dealer, and started on a trip to Palestine. World War II interrupted the work, which was finally completed in France in the early 1950s, after a nine year exile in America. The first lithographs, printed by the great French lithographers Mourlot Frères, were published in 1956. They were met with such high acclaim that Chagall made a further set, which was published in 1960.

“Whenever I bent over the lithography stone… it was as though I was touching a talisman. It seemed as though I could pour all my sadness and joys into it.”

Meyer Shapiro called Chagall one of the greatest religious artists of all time, and these lithographs show why: powerful drawing, intense colours, and, most of all, compassion for the characters.