Marc Chagall

James McLane, Los Angeles
Pierre Matisse Gallery, New York
Acquired from the above

Beverly Hills, Modern Institute of Art, Modern Artists in Transition, 1948
Pasadena, Pasadena Art Museum, 70th Anniversary Exhibition Marc Chagall, 1957, no. 38, illustrated in the catalogue
Hamburg, Kunstverein, Munich, Haus der Kunst and Paris, Musée des Arts Décoratifs, Marc Chagall, 1959, no. 128 (in Hamburg and Munich); no. 141 (in Paris), illustrated in the catalogue
La Jolla, Art Center, Marc Chagall, 75th Anniversary Exhibition, 1962, no. 26, illustrated in the catalogue
Tokyo, Musée National d'Art Occidental and Kyoto, Musée Municipal, Marc Chagall, 1963, no. 81, illustrated in the catalogue
New York, Pierre Matisse Gallery, Chagall, 1968

Franz Meyer, Marc Chagall, Life and Work, New York, 1961, no. 773, illustrated
Jean Cassou, Chagall, London, 1965, illustrated p. 203

Le Violiniste bleu is a magnificent example of Chagall's fascination for themes and images from his childhood in Russia, to which he often returned during his mature life. In the present work, the violinist is floating above a village reminiscent of the artist’s native Vitebsk, a theme that can be traced back to his celebrated Le Violiniste of 1912-13 (fig. 1), now in the collection of the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam. Indeed, Le Violiniste bleu evokes the fantasy and harmony of Russian rural life, a world that provided an endless source of inspiration, and to which Chagall often escaped throughout his later years. Belonging to the realm of circus and street entertainment, the violinist has a twofold character: at once joyful, vividly coloured, and melancholy. Floating on a stool against a blue sky, accompanied by birds and a vase of flowers seen upside-down, the musician embodies a world of fantasy and childhood memories, that provided emotional and mental refuge during the artist’s years in exile. Chagall had moved to the United States two years after the outbreak of World War II. In the winter of 1945-46 he bought a small cottage in the northern part of the New York State, where he executed a number of gouaches, as well as some of his most important oil paintings of the late 1940s, of which this is one.

Fig. 1, Marc Chagall, Le Violiniste, 1912-13, oil on canvas, Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam