Marc Chagall. Colours for the Bible

For Marc Chagall's whole life (1887-1985), The Bible was a major source of inspiration. The seventeen paintings of the Biblical Message kept in the Marc Chagall National Museum provide the best testimony evidence: painted between 1956 and 1966, their message of universal love and their creative freedom make them one of the most important spiritual legacy of the artist. The exhibition offers a return in the past, some thirty-five years earlier when the artist began his studies on biblical themes by producing a masterly series of gouaches. In 1930, Marc Chagall and the publisher Ambroise Vollard (1866-1939) begin their third collaboration. After creating the illustrations for Gogol's *Dead souls* and for La Fontaine's *Fables*, the Parisian publisher asked Marc Chagall to produce engravings to illustrate the Bible. It was the beginning of a remarkable publishing project, which for economic and political reasons, would only come to fruition twenty-six years later. In 1956, publisher Tériade (1897-1983) took over the project and published a monumental book, illustrated with one hundred and five plates engraved by Marc Chagall.
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