On Friday, the museum opened the exhibition of one of the most unique 20th century painters - Marc Chagall. Slovene art lovers have already met with this renowned versatile artist in the past, but for the first time they have got the opportunity to see such a comprehensive insight into the peaks of his creation.
The exhibition features 135 works from the collection of the private German collector Richard H. Mayer, who - according to the curator of the exhibition, art historian Katarina Mohar - offers an insight into the peak of Chagall's graphic description. The main attention of the exhibition is dedicated to colour lithographs, which were created as illustrations to the Bible after the artist's trip to Palestine in 1931, and were presented to the public in a special edition of the Paris-based art magazine Verve in the late 50s of the 20th century.
According to Mohar, the lithographs are exhibited along with a selection of Chagall's graphic works, in which the artist explored the motives to which he kept returning. These are images from his native Vitebsk, self-portraits, portraits of couples in love, his beloved Bella, circus artists and musicians. The layout of the exhibition thus fully sheds light on an important part of Chagall's artistic heritage. Setting up the exhibition was a great personal and professional challenge for Mohar, as she has long been fascinated by Chagall's immediacy and unpretentiousness. "Chagall's opus is huge, extremely diverse and thematically rich," she explained.
Projections of Chagall's images on castle walls
At the presentation of the exhibition, the director of the Lendava Gallery-Museum Dubravko Baumgartner reminded that this is a continuation of the World's Greatest Artists series, which began in 2009 with the exhibition of Victor Vasarely. The series has become well established, as evidenced by the constant increase in the number of visitors, emphasizes the director.
Last year's exhibition of Salvador Dalí was visited by more than 20,000 people, and with Chagall's exhibition the gallery-museum wants to exceed that. For this purpose, they have prepared an additional programme. Among other things, the exhibition will showcase the displayed graphics with projections on castle walls, which will be visible from the city. "It is especially encouraging that visitors come back every year from Slovenia as well as neighbouring countries, Hungary, Austria and Croatia," says the director, who noted on this occasion that all exhibited works are originals.
The cycle of the world’s giants of fine art has proved to be one of the most visited exhibitions in Slovenia, and the exhibition centre with 27,000 visitors per year is the best-visited gallery in eastern Slovenia. The exhibition titled Creation and the Bible was unveiled by the Minister of Culture Anton Peršak on Friday evening and will be open until October 31.
