Picasso apparently suggested Chagall had an angel inside his head. Discover the kind of works that inspired such a comment at the Albertina’s big winter 24/25 exhibition.
- Solo exhibition of Chagall’s art
- Around 100 works
- Spans all his creative periods
- Runs Sept 28, 2024 – Feb 9, 2025
- Book Albertina tickets* online
- See also:
Flying violinists
(Marc Chagall, The Kite, 1925-26; gouache; ALBERTINA, Vienna – The Batliner Collection © Bildrecht, Vienna 2024)
Chagall (1887-1985) is one of those artists with recognition far beyond the realms of art museum visitors, even managing a name check in a romcom movie like Notting Hill (which featured his 1950 La Mariée painting).
This is the artist of whom Picasso also said:
When Henri Matisse dies, Chagall will be the only painter left who understands what color really is…there’s never been anybody since Renoir who has the feeling for light that Chagall has.
The artist’s works span some 80 years of creative endeavour. All linked by a sense of continuity, yet flavoured by different genres. And many now hang in the world’s great art museums.
So the appearance of a Chagall exhibition in Vienna across the winter of 24/25 inevitably raises a few eyebrows in excited anticipation.
Perhaps also because (speaking for myself), the artist’s at times whimsical style feels like an antidote to the unrelenting cynicism of life as a news-reading 50-something.
The floating goats, love motifs, music and colour gird the loins for chilly days with dark skies, too.
The Albertina’s exhibition features around 100 works drawn from across Chagall’s different creative eras, albeit with a focus on his treatment of fundamental universal themes.
(Marc Chagall, The Great Circus, 1970; pencil and gouache; ALBERTINA, Vienna – The Batliner Collection © Bildrecht, Vienna 2024)
Goats appear, of course. Cockerels. Donkeys. Cows and fish. A slew of pictorial invented worlds, familiar yet strange. Though the artist himself is quoted as denying intention behind alleged symbols in his paintings:
It is a result I did not seek. It is something that may be found afterwards, and which can be interpreted according to taste.
So what we see is what we see.
It nevertheless proves intriguing to find common motifs relating to Chagall’s childhood (like the violin) appearing throughout his artistic transition. The instrument is there in 1908/09’s muted Death, for example, and also in 1974’s Don Quixote.
And equally intriguing to see unexpected works among the whimsy and colour, contradicting the popular image of Chagall’s art: a dose of cubism here, a dour image there, especially among his earlier art.
The Albertina possesses over 300 paintings, drawings, ceramics and (mainly) prints by Chagall, but the exhibition also draws on loans and on a collaboration with the Kunstsammlung Nordrhein-Westfalen (if you miss Chagall in Vienna, you can catch him in Düsseldorf from mid-March, 2025).
Dates, tickets & tips
Drift through Chagall’s worlds from September 28th, 2024 to February 9th, 2025. It’s going to be popular, so go early in the day if you can and book your Albertina tickets in advance; an entrance ticket for or from the museum includes the special exhibitions inside.
(Booking service provided by Tiqets.com*, who I am an affiliate of)
Chagall’s lifespan largely matches the era covered in the Albertina’s prestigious permanent exhibition of art. So you might want to pop in and enjoy works by his peers and predecessors.
Two more artists complete a trio of winter 24/25 highlight exhibitions in Vienna:
- Paul Gauguin at the Bank Austria Kunstforum Wien: a major retrospective pulls in works from prestigious museums and collections
- Rembrandt at the Kunsthistorisches Museum: full of masterpieces and as seen through the prism of his student Samuel van Hoogstraten
How to get to the Chagalls
Just follow the travel tips at the bottom of the main Albertina article. (The museum is very central.)
Address: Albertinaplatz 1, 1010 Vienna