Two Significant Twentieth Century Portfolios on Biblical Themes

CIVA is now accepting bookings for this exhibition of eighteen intaglio prints by Ben-Zion (framed size: 24" X 28") and twenty-four color lithographs by Marc Chagall (framed size: 18" X 24") on Biblical subjects - forty-four works including title covers.

ABOUT THE EXHIBITION:
Tal mud, n. [Heb. talmudh, instruction, from lamadh, to learn] the collection of writings constituting the Jewish civil and religious law: it consists of two parts, the Mishnah (text) and the Gemara (commentary), but the term is sometimes restricted to the Gemara. (Webster's New Twentieth Century Dictionary, second edition)

The title TALMUD is appropriate for this show that brings together the Biblical work of two of the most important Jewish artists of the 20th Century. Even though Talmud deals traditionally with text and not image, these images are commentaries on the text of Scripture in the best of the Talmudic tradition.

ABOUT THE ARTISTS:
Ben-Zion (1897-1987). Reared by his father for the rabbinate, Ben-Zion Weiman came from Poland to America in 1920. After turning to art (and shortening his name), he became a founding member of The Ten, the 1930's avant-garde group, with Ilya Bolotowsky, Lee Gatch, Adolph Gottleib, Mark Rothko, and others. Ben-Zion's work is represented in many museums throughout the country including the Metropolitan, the Whitney, and the Museum of Modern Art in New York, the Art Institute of Chicago, the Philadelphia Museum of Art and the Phillips Collection, Washington. The Jewish Museum in New York opened in 1948 with a Ben-Zion exhibition. His Biblical Themes portfolio (1951) is complete in this exhibition.

Marc Chagall (1887-1985). The name of this artist, one of the most brilliant lights of the 20th Century art world, is forever linked with the Bible in the formation by the French Government of the Musee National Message Biblique Marc Chagall in Nice. After moving to Paris from Russia he began a suite of etchings on the Bible for Vollard in 1931. Again he turned to Biblical themes in 1956 when the French magazine Verve published a suite of color lithographs of Chagall's Biblical themes in a double issue, 33/34.

Four years later a larger suite, Drawings for the Bible was published in both a French edition (VERVE 37-38), and in an American edition (HARCOURT, BRACE and COMPANY, New York). This suite of prints is complete here. The 24 original color lithographs in this exhibition were printed by MOURLOT Freres, and are from the American edition. The book cover is also a lithograph specially designed for this edition.


ABOUT BOOKING:
This traveling exhibition will open at Virginia Theological Seminary in the fall of 2002 from where it will travel to the Municipal Gallery in Denton, Texas. There are open dates, inquire for more information.