MARC CHAGALL’S MOST IMPORTANT ILLUSTRATED BOOK TO FEATURE AT AUCTION AT BONHAMS NEW YORK

MARC CHAGALL’S MOST IMPORTANT ILLUSTRATED BOOK TO FEATURE AT AUCTION AT BONHAMS NEW YORK

  

  

Leaves from Four Tales from the Arabian Nights by Marc Chagall, New York: Pantheon Books, 1948
Est. $300,000 - $500,000

New York – Bonhams is pleased to present the Gemini Collection of Modern Prints & Illustrated Books, at auction onOctober 28 in New York. The sale comprises 166 lots and is anticipated to fetch $1-1.5 million.

Gemini Fine Books & Arts was founded by the late Alexander “Arik” Verezhensky. Mr Verezhensky was a Russianemigré and cybernetics PhD. In the U.S. he became a passionate collector and dealer of fine prints and illustrated books by the major artists of the 20^th century. He joined both the ABAA and ILAB, the two foremost trade organizations for fine books. Christina Geiger, Director of the Books Department at Bonhams New York, states, “Mr.Verezhensky was widely respected by his colleagues and by auctioneers. He had exceptional discipline in acquiring books and prints in only the best possible condition.” 

The star lot is one of Marc Chagall’s most important illustrated books, Four Tales from the Arabian Nights, estimated at $300,000 – 500,000, published by Pantheon Books in New York in 1948. After the death of his wife, Bella, in 1944, Chagall began to focus his work on the themes of lost love, death, and reunion. When asked by his colleague, Jacques Schiffrin, to collaborate with him on an illustrated book to be printed in the United States, Chagall found himself deeply drawn to the imagery from the Arabian Nights. The complete set of 12 color lithographs on woven paper has been called the finest example of color lithography produced in the United States prior to 1950. The Gemini copy is in superb condition with fresh colors and pristine sheets. It is also unique, including a set of 23 color progressive proofs.

Also featured is a signed, limited edition illustrated book, À toute épreuve by Joan Miró (est. $35,000 – 55,000) with poems by Paul Eluard and published in 1958. It is an exceptional feat of book illustration, which took Miró 10 years to create. Miró himself wrote of the project, "I have made some trials which have allowed me to see what it was to make a book and not merely to illustrate it. Illustration is always a secondary matter. The important thing is that a book must have all the dignity of a sculpture carved in marble."

Pablo Picasso’s first major illustrated book, Ovid’s Métamorphoses, estimated at $35,000 – 55,000 and published in 1931 in Lausanne, Switzerland by Albert Skira is another highlight of this sale. The book is illustrated with 30 original etchings by Picasso plus an additional suite printed on chine paper, one of only 10 such suites. This work was Picasso’s first serious attempt to provide an alternate vision of a text and is a superb example of his virile and classical graphic line in this period.

The catalog is now available online at www.bonhams.com/22593.

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Currently Exhibiting - Marc Chagall at Leslie Sacks Fine Art

	MARC CHAGALL in commemoration of the artist's 125th birthday July 7 - August 6, 2012 Click image below to view exhibition LESLIE SACKS FINE ART 11640 San Vicente Boulevard, Los Angeles, California 90049 (310) 820-9448  gallery@lesliesacks.com www.lesliesacks.com

Marc Chagall - Nassau County Museum of Art

Marc Chagall
Museum Galleries To Become a Treasure House of
Chagall’s Works, Including First Local Showing of
1957 Bible Series of Hand-Colored Etchings

July 21—November 4, 2012

 

“If we had nothing of Chagall but his Bible, he would be for us a great modern artist."
Art Historian Meyer Schapiro [Columbia University]

“The Bible is life, an echo of nature, and this is the secret I have endeavored to transmit."
Marc Chagall

Two years ago, Ambassador Arnold Saltzman, the founding president and current executive vice president of Nassau County Museum of Art, proposed a highly ambitious undertaking—an exhibition that would make the museum’s galleries a treasure house of works by Marc Chagall. The museum’s former director, Constance Schwartz, was enlisted to organize an extraordinary exhibition of Chagall’s work, more extensive than any other previously seen in this area, and including paintings being shown to the Long Island public for the first time. Saltzman and Schwartz reached out for important loans from the many collectors, galleries and museums that they had established relationships with over the years. These efforts have resulted in Marc Chagall, a major exhibition that features significant paintings and a large selection from Chagall’s series of 105 hand-colored etchings of Bible stories that he produced in 1957. These etchings have never before been seen on Long Island. Marc Chagall, opening at Nassau County Museum of Art on July 21, 2012 and remaining on view through November 4, 2012, is supported by the Saltzman Family Foundation and The David Berg Foundation.

The works selected for the exhibition demonstrate how Chagall, throughout a long and distinguished career, incorporated facets of his early Russian-Jewish heritage into multilayered works. Chagall’s storytelling paintings portray a fantastic pictorial world where heaven and earth seem to meet, and couples are always in love. It’s a world where people and animals—cows, goats, donkeys, horses and birds—float upside down or sideways, irrespective of the laws of gravity. Chagall’s hypersensitive imagination is palpable as he shares with the viewer his memories of family in brilliantly colored works set amidst the houses and streets of his native Vitebsk.

The Bible etchings on view in Marc Chagall are on loan from the Haggerty Art Museum of Marquette University in Milwaukee. Chagall’s biographer, Franz Meyer, wrote: “Chagall’s ties with the Bible are very deep indeed; the forms that people its world are a part of his own inner life, part of the living Jewish heritage, and thus are archetypes of a greater, more intensive world.”  In Marc Chagall—The Graphic Works, Meyer speculates that the significance of the Bible in Chagall’s work was rooted in his early childhood experiences in Russia.

Marc Chagall (1887-1985) was the eldest of nine children born to a poor Russian-Jewish family in the village of Vitebsk. His artistic talent was evident early with a distinctive style of images from childhood emerging during his studies with Leon Bakst in St. Petersburg. Working in Paris from 1910 to 1914, Chagall began to produce paintings inspired by Russian folklore and village life. During World War I, Chagall returned to Russia, ascending to the post of Commissar for Fine Arts in Vitebsk. It was there that he produced works that were to become his most famous—images in strong, bright colors depicting otherworldly states that fused fantasy, nostalgia and religion. He returned to France permanently after World War I, save for the years of the Nazi occupation when he fled to the safety of New York and its environs.

The museum is offering several exhibition-related programs to enhance understanding and enjoyment of the Chagall exhibition. Artists of the 20th Century: Marc Chagall is a 50-minute film screening daily from July 21 through November 4; the film explores Chagall’s Russian-Jewish roots. Lunchtime lectures on the exhibition will be offered on August 23, September 20 and October 25, On October 6, Director Emerita and Guest Curator Constance Schwartz discusses the exhibition; she will be joined by art collector Ambassador Arnold A. Saltzman, the museum’s founding president. On September 15 a Klezmer Band presents a concert of the spirited music heard at Jewish weddings and celebrations in the Russia of Chagall’s youth. Art historian and author Charles A. Riley II, Ph.D. returns to the museum on October 13 with a talk about Chagall’s artwork for the performing arts, especially opera and dance. Children’s programs in connection with the Chagall exhibition include Friday morning readings of Eastern European folklore on July 27, August 3 and August 10, followed by a family-friendly exhibition tour and supervised art activities. Show Us Your Collections! on August 18 will encourage youngsters to share their prized possessions and create new art with a variety of materials. Discover Chagall’s Childhood World on October 20 features a real petting zoo to echo the animal characters seen in Chagall’s paintings of his native Village of Vitebsk; children will be guided in creating pastel representations of their own neighborhoods. Log onto nassaumuseum.org/events for details on these and other programs at the museum.

Nassau County Museum of Art, governed by a privately elected Board of Trustees, is chartered and accredited by New York State as a not-for-profit, private educational institution. The museum’s programs and exhibitions are made possible through the support of Nassau County under County Executive Edward P. Mangano and the Nassau County Legislature, as well as memberships, admissions, special events, private and corporate donations, as well as government and foundation grants.

Educational programs at the museum are made possible through the generosity of The New York State Council on the Arts with the support of Governor Andrew Cuomo and the New York State Legislature, the DeWitt Wallace Fund for Youth - a donor-advised fund at the Long Island Community Foundation, Bank of America, David Lerner and Associates, and Nassau County Museum of Art Ball and Benefactors Dinner. Additional generous educational support is provided by Capital One Bank, Milton & Sally Avery Foundation, North Shore Autism Circle, The Ridenour Endowment Fund, and TD Bank Foundation.

Nassau County Museum of Art is located at One Museum Drive in Roslyn Harbor, just off Northern Boulevard, Route 25A, two traffic lights west of Glen Cove Road. The museum is open Tuesday-Sunday, 11 a.m.-4:45 p.m. Docent-led tours of the exhibition are offered at 2 p.m. each day; tours of the mansion are offered each Saturday at 1 p.m.; meet in the lobby, no reservations needed. Tours are free with museum admission. Family art activities and family tours are offered Sundays from 1 pm; free with museum admission. Call (516) 484-9338, ext. 12 to inquire about group tours. Admission is $10 for adults, $8 for seniors (62 and above) and $4 for students and children (4 to12). Members are admitted free. There is a $2 parking fee on weekends (members, free). The Museum Store is open Tuesday through Sunday, 11 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. Call (516) 484-9337 for current exhibitions, events, days/times and directions or log onto nassaumuseum.org.