"Combien d'Années (#21)" from Marc Chagall's 'Poèmes', 1968. This artwork is a color woodcut on Rives wove paper from the edition of 238. The image size is 13 x 10". The artwork ships framed and accompanied by a certificate of authenticity.
In 1968, Marc Chagall completed his captivating suite Poèmes, a portfolio of 24 original woodcuts paired with 24 poems he had written, a rare moment in his long career when word and image met on equal terms. The bold, dream-touched forms and vivid color of the prints reflect Chagall’s poetic imagination at full flowering, while the poems deepen the emotional landscape and invite quiet reflection. As Chagall’s granddaughter, Meret Meyer, wrote, the marriage of illustration and word in this work “opens unsuspected doors… where words fail and where the line is set free.”
Published in an exceptionally limited edition of just 238 sets by Éditions Gérald Cramer in Geneva, Les Poèmes exemplifies the highest level of printmaking craftsmanship, rendered in woodcut on fine Rives or Japon paper. Chagall’s Poèmes offer an opportunity to own an intimate masterpiece of modern printmaking – luminous, poetic, and alive.
(Translated from the original French text):
HOW MANY YEARS
Sometimes I would like to all someone
To ask for the roses to blossom
On your arrival
I would like to call someone
To ask that the dawn
Cover itself again
With the blue of the night
And naked, headless, me
I will look for you
Where are you
I just woke up
How many years I have slept
You remember: yesterday
I was kissing you
Your smell in my hand has faded
From tree to tree with you I have flown
I was looking for you
Where are you
Autumn, winter
Spring, summer
Drive me away
Towards where
It lights up in your hands
My young crown of flowers
It trembles and awaits
The other wedding night
In my Hands remains but
The dust of my years
I have been looking for you
Where are you
Each of my days rushes
Towards its night, pushes me
By force
I do not want and I want
I am ready
My wings drop
And rise
To take you to the sky
On my road
And when I fly like that
I look for you
But where are you?
Hands fold and bend
To paint your brief world
My mouth and my heart open
So my prayer might reach you
From my paintings
Flow my dream
At your feet
But where are you
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