''Le Grand Cirque'' is a 1968 oil on canvas painting by Belarusian-French artist

Marc Chagall Marc Chagall; russian: link=no, Марк Заха́рович Шага́л ; be, Марк Захаравіч Шагал . (born Moishe Shagal; 28 March 1985) was a Russian-French artist. An early modernism, modernist, he was associated with se ...

Description

On this painting, Chagall focuses on the ring or center stage as a mythical winged figures looks down upon the spectacle from on high. The subject of circus was dear to the artist. Chagall often returned to the circus as a subject matter in his artworks. He considered clowns, acrobats and actors as tragically human beings who are like characters in certain religious paintings. Among other

Post-Impressionist Post-Impressionism (also spelled Postimpressionism) was a predominantly French art movement that developed roughly between 1886 and 1905, from the last Impressionist exhibition to the birth of Fauvism. Post-Impressionism emerged as a reaction ag ...

and

Modern Modern may refer to: History * Modern history ** Early Modern period ** Late Modern period *** 18th century *** 19th century *** 20th century ** Contemporary history * Moderns, a faction of Freemasonry that existed in the 18th century Phil ...

painters who featured the circus in their works are Seurat, Toulouse-Lautrec,

Picasso Pablo Ruiz Picasso (25 October 1881 – 8 April 1973) was a Spanish painter, sculptor, printmaker, ceramicist and Scenic design, theatre designer who spent most of his adult life in France. One of the most influential artists of the 20th ce ...

, Rouault,

Van Dongen Van Dongen is a Dutch toponymic surname meaning "from/of Dongen", a town in North Brabant.

and Léger. ''Le Grand Cirque'' (1968) is considered Chagall’s most grand exploration of the circus as a subject for his paintings.

Provenance

Pierre Matisse Gallery, New York acquired the painting from the artist shortly after he completed it. The painting was first exhibited in New York in December 1968, and then was kept in Pierre Matisse Gallery’s collection for several years, exhibiting at some of the most important retrospectives of the artist’s work, including the definitive exhibition at the Royal Academy of Arts in 1985. In May 1998, the painting was sold to private collection at Sotheby’s, New York.

Exhibitions

* New York, Pierre Matisse Gallery, Marc Chagall, Recent Paintings, 1966-1968, 1968, no. 23 * New York,

Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum The Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, often referred to as The Guggenheim, is an art museum at 1071 Fifth Avenue on the corner of East 89th Street on the Upper East Side of Manhattan in New York City. It is the permanent home of a continuously exp ...

, 1975 * New York, Pierre Matisse Gallery, Marc Chagall, A Celebration, 1977, no. 11 * Sarasota, John and Mable Ringling Museum of Art, The Circus in Art, 1977 *

Milwaukee Museum of Art The Milwaukee Art Museum (MAM) is an art museum in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Its collection contains nearly 25,000 works of art. Location and Visit Located on the lakefront of Lake Michigan, the Milwaukee Art Museum is one of the largest art museu ...

; Columbus Museum of Art; Albany, New York State Museum; Washington, D.C., Corcoran Gallery of Art, Center Ring: The Artist. Two Centuries of Circus Art, 1981-82, no. 29 * London,

Royal Academy of Arts The Royal Academy of Arts (RA) is an art institution based in Burlington House on Piccadilly in London. Founded in 1768, it has a unique position as an independent, privately funded institution led by eminent artists and architects. Its purpo ...

Philadelphia Museum of Art The Philadelphia Museum of Art (PMoA) is an art museum originally chartered in 1876 for the Centennial Exposition in Philadelphia. The main museum building was completed in 1928 on Fairmount, a hill located at the northwest end of the Benjamin Fr ...

, Chagall, 1985, no. 110

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Grand Cirque (1968 painting), Le 1968 paintings Paintings by Marc Chagall Clowns in art

Description

Provenance

Exhibitions

See also

References