Chagall Discovered: From Russian and Private Collections

Chagall Discovered: from Russian and Private Collections; contributors Irina Antonova, Andrei Voznesensky, and Marina Bessonova; Hugh Lauter Levin Associates, Inc., New York; distributed by Macmillan Publishing Company, New York, 1988. Printed in the U.S.S.R. Selection and catalogue my Marina Bessonova; designed by Mikhail Anikst and Kirill Selvinsky. From the blurb – The year 1987 marked the centennial of Marc Chagall’s birth in the Russian town of Vitebsk. To celebrate this important anniversary, Moscow’s Pushkin Museum of Fine Arts held the Soviet Union’s first major Chagall exhibit. This book, based upon the long-awaited exhibit, offers a novel opportunity to study and cherish previously unseen masterpieces by this great modern artist. It contains 150 full-page colour reproductions of works from Soviet collections and from collections of the artist’s family. Many of these works have never before been reproduced in any publication. For eighty years Chagall conjured images from such sources as the Bible, folk and fairy tales, and modern painting styles to form a delightful and unique mythical world. Chagall’s works feature men and women, angels on horseback, winged grandfather clocks soaring high over Paris, the French countryside, and Vitebsk, reflecting his enigmatic and magical sense of whimsy. This book is a record of Chagall’s life, his triumphant return to the Soviet Union, and the Pushkin Museum exhibition. It features more than 300 illustrations, as well as three important texts on Chagall. This folio sized volume of 327 pages is in fine condition in a fine French-fold dust jacket that is now enclosed in a protective mylar wrap. There is a personal gift presentation on the first free endpaper, written in pencil. The quality of the reproductions is outstanding, aided by being printed on calendered paper. This paper has made the book very heavy, so additional postage may be required.…