During the artistic ferment following the 1917 Bolshevik Revolution, major artists joined actors, choreographers, writers and musicians in creating a daring new theater. This collaboration gave rise to extraordinary productions with highly original stage designs that redefined the concept of theater itself, attracting large, diverse audiences and garnering international critical praise.
In “Chagall and the Artists of the Russian Jewish Theater, 1919‱949,” on view through March 22, the Jewish Museum tells the little-known and tumultuous story of this vanguard artistic flowering, which thrived on the stage for 30 years before being brutally extinguished during the Stalinist era.
More than 200 works of art and ephemera, the majority never before exhibited, have been drawn from collections in Russia, France, Israel and the United States for the showing. Marc Chagall’s celebrated, monumental murals are featured, in addition to more than 100 watercolor, gouache and crayon drawings of costume and set designs, executed in the experimental modes of Cubism, Futurism, and Constructivism by such artists as Natan Altman, Robert Falk, Ignaty Nivinsky, Isaac Rabinovich and Aleksandr Tyshler.
Rare film footage of early performances transports viewers back to another time. Fascinating archival materials such as music, posters, prints, programs and period photographs of productions and actors in character help recapture extraordinary moments. Many items in the exhibition survived a 1953 blaze at Moscow’s Bakhrushin State Central Theater Museum, the premier repository for archives of the Moscow State Yiddish Theater (GOSET), and a major lender to the exhibition. The fire, almost certainly intentional, was an attempt by the Soviets to stamp out the legacy of the Russian Jewish theater.
The legendary murals created by Chagall in 1920 to adorn the GOSET theater are displayed in a gallery that replicates its original intimate size. Painted by the artist in a little over a month, Chagall’s murals cover the museum’s walls with engaging representations of GOSET’s performers using vibrant color and geometric forms that dance across the surfaces.
Altman’s faux-naïve, yet sophisticated color drawings for the sets and costumes of one of the most acclaimed productions are another highlight. Already a leading avant-garde artist, Altman transformed familiar folkloric characters into a visual feast of exaggerated, distorted and twisted forms. Rare photographs of the original production are shown on video, and the production’s Constructivist set model (reconstructed), poster, handwritten score and program are also on view.
Following its showing in New York, “Chagall and the Artists of the Russian Jewish Theater, 1919‱949” travels to the Contemporary Jewish Museum, San Francisco, where it will be on view from April 25 through September 7.
The accompanying 240-page catalog, Chagall and the Artists of the Russian Jewish Theater , co-published by the Jewish Museum and Yale University Press, and edited by Susan Tumarkin Goodman, features 230 illustrations (146 color and 84 black and white images), most never before published, and includes five essays by leading scholars in the field. The hardcover book sells for $65. The soft cover edition will be available only at the two exhibition venues for $45.
The Jewish Museum is at 1109 Fifth Avenue at 92nd Street. For more information, www.thejewishmuseum.org or 212-423-3200.
