+ Expand

Description: PROPERTY FROM A PRIVATE COLLECTION

1887-1985
AUTOPORTRAIT DE PROFIL

measurements
34 by 27.9cm.

alternate measurements
13 3/8 by 11in.

Painted in Vitebsk in 1914.

signed M. Chagall and dated 1914 (upper left); inscribed in Russian Boy with Flowers by the Window and dated Vitebsk 1914 on the reverse

oil on board

PROVENANCE

Ambroise Vollard, Paris
Mr & Mrs M. P. Potamkin, Elkins Park, Pennsylvania (sale: Parke-Bernet Galleries Inc., New York, 6th February 1957, lot 63)
Purchased at the above sale by the grandfather of the present owner

EXHIBITED

Zurich, Kunsthaus, Chagall, 1967, no. 39
Cologne, Kunsthalle, Chagall, 1967, no. 51

LITERATURE

Franz Meyer, Marc Chagall. Life and Work, New York, 1961, no. 161, illustrated

NOTE

Autoportrait de profil depicts the young Marc Chagall in 1914, shortly after he returned from Paris to his hometown of Vitebsk. Earlier that spring, the artist had exhibited his recent paintings at both the Salon des Indépendants in Paris and at the Galerie Der Sturm in Berlin. Critics throughout Europe praised his work, particularly his stunning self-portraits, which were saturated with bold colours. But Chagall's time in central Europe was cut short just as his star was beginning to rise among the avant-garde. In mid-1914 while he was visiting his family in Belarus, Germany declared war on Russia, and the artist was prohibited from travelling back to the French capital for the next several years. The paintings that he did during these first months of the war show the modern influences that he had taken with him from Paris and the poetic stylisation of the Russian folk culture that now surrounded him in Vitebsk. This intimate depiction of the 27-year-old artist, entranced by the smell the flowers and the pleasures of his youth, is a wonderful example of his culturally enriched aesthetic. Using a palette of deep blues and greens, Chagall created an intensely personal and introspective image.

The theme of self-representation was of constant interest to Chagall throughout his long and prolific career. But those self-portraits from his early years are among the most significant, as they established Chagall's identity within the artistic avant-garde. Jean-Michel Foray has observed that the self-portraits from 1909-17 were essential to Chagall's individuality and coming-of-age as an artist: 'The profusion and variety of these self-portraits are such that they reveal, in addition to their origins in a formal studio practice, a true self-esteem and yet a desire for affirmation -- the artist is using self-portraiture as a means of observing and measuring his own ambition. It is also clear that at such moments -- by choosing the self-portrait genre, by betraying a consciousness of his appearance, by representing himself as both complacent and exalted -- Chagall is expressing his intuition that henceforth, art will no longer be the product of a larger cultural context, but shall originate in the subjectivity of the individual artist. By placing himself at the center of the artwork, he asserts that he is no longer a mere executor (of the wishes of the church, of those in power, of the academy, of the view); he has taken command of his production' (J.-M. Foray, Marc Chagall (exhibition catalogue), The San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, 2003, p. 14).

In a letter written on 10^th May 1957 to the family of the present owner, Marc Chagall expressed his joy at seeing again this youthful self-portrait: 'Mon étonnement a été très grand en voyant cet ancien autoportrait que j'ai fait après mon retour de Paris, en Russie, vers 1915/16 [sic.], juste au moment de mon mariage avec ma femme Bella; autour du tableau autoportrait au bocal, de 1917, que vous pouvez voir dans une des monographies sur mon art. Autour aussi de l'autoportrait avec les fleurs de lys. J'étais alors très jeune et plein de romantisme. Je n'ai pas fait beaucoup d'autoportraits, aussi possédez-vous quelque chose de rare.'