Marc Chagall – Between image and language
The Kunstmuseum Pablo Picasso Münster is showing the exhibition “Marc Chagall – Languages of Images” from 8 March to 9 June 2025. With over 120 paintings, drawings and prints, the show is dedicated to the interaction between visual art and literature in the work of the French-Russian artist. The focus is on Chagall’s exploration of language – in particular his native Yiddish, which served him as a source of pictorial motifs and themes.
He added his own illustrations to Chagall’s autobiography “My Life”, which paint a multi-layered picture of his Belarusian origins. He also interpreted literary works such as Gogol’s “The Dead Souls” or the fables of Jean de La Fontaine in his own pictures – always in a creative dialogue between text and painting.
The writing and painting artist understood both forms of expression as equally important means of his artistic language.
A particular focus is on the late work “Poèmes” from 1968, in which Chagall translates his own poems into coloured woodcuts. The exhibition is complemented by over forty previously unpublished sketches that provide an intimate insight into the artist’s working process. Works from over four decades make it clear how closely language and image are linked in Chagall’s work. “Perhaps I paint because it replaces the words that I lack,” he wrote to the publicist Jean Paulhan – a sentence that captures the essence of his work.
Further information
The exhibition Marc Chagall – Languages of Images can be seen at the Pablo Picasso Münster from 8 March to 9 June 2025.