Chagall Discovered [antikvár]

FOREWORD In 1973 during his visit to Moscow, Marc Chagall spent several hours in the Pushkin Museum of the Fine Arts. He attentively studied the museum's displays and devoted more than an hour to the wonderful collection of drawings by Matisse, an artist with whom Chagall had been friendly and whose work he valued highly. At that time he said that he would be happy to see a large exhibition of his own paintings in the Pushkin Museum—he very much wanted to show Soviet viewers the work he had done in France. To our great regret this plan was not carried out during his lifetime. It is thus with a yet deeper feeling of responsibility towards the memory of a great artist that we are today making his dream a reahty. This exhibition has been long awaited, particularly by those who know and love 20th century art. It is not just their age but also their aesthetic outlook that explains this public interest: people want to hear and listen to the voice of their era, and relive the dramatic process whereby new artistic forms and images were created and estabhshed. The Pushkin Museum has constantly striven to satisfy this natural desire to know and understand the art of our time in all its varied manifestations. It has not always been easy. Nevertheless, today's exhibition has been preceded by the showing of works by many of Chagall's splendid contemporaries. Among them there have been exhibitions of Picasso and Matisse, Léger and Marquet, Masereel and Dunikowski, Bourdelle and Barlach, Siqueiros and Rivera, Permeke and Erni, Favorsky and Chekrygin, Kollwitz and Kent, Munck and Morandi. The 1981 exhibition Paris-Moscow, in particular, was a triumphant celebration of 20th century art. Our Chagall exhibition marks the centenary of his birth and continues this series. However, it also has its own story. Regrettably the heritage of this universally-acclaimed master was for a number of years forgotten in the Soviet Union. It shared the fate of an entire range of great cultural achievements that until recently were only with difficulty accessible to the Soviet viewer. Therefore the Chagall Exhibition today is not only a major artistic event but a vivid expression of the improving moral and aesthetic climate within our country; it is a moving lesson in truth, when lost values are restored. Mark Chagall belongs to the glorious group of rebels and dreamers whose work in the early decades of the 20th century marked the beginning of a new era