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Graphic: Bank of America presents Masterpiece Moment
Video: Exterior and interior shots of the Philadelphia Museum of Art
On-screen text: Philadelphia Museum of Art
Video: The painting “Half-Past Three (The Poet),” 1911, by Marc Chagall
On-screen text: Marc Chagall (French, b. Russia, 1887–1985), “Half-Past Three (The Poet),” 1911, oil on canvas, 6’ 5 1/8” × 57”
Video: Timothy Rub, Former Director of the Philadelphia Museum of Art, standing next to the painting “Half-Past Three (The Poet),” 1911, by Marc Chagall
On-screen text: Timothy Rub, The George D. Widener Former Director and Chief Executive Officer, The Philadelphia Museum of Art
Audio— Timothy Rub: Hello, I’m Timothy Rub, Former Director of the Philadelphia Museum of Art. Welcome to Bank of America’s Masterpiece Moment.
Video: Shots of Philadelphia Museum of Art galleries
Audio: One of the things I love most about the Philadelphia Museum of Art is its wonderfully rich and diverse collection of European art from the first several decades of the twentieth century, a period of innovation and radical change.
Video: Timothy Rub standing next to the painting “Half-Past Three (The Poet),” 1911, by Marc Chagall
Audio: Today I’d like to talk about one of my favorite works in our collection, “Half-Past Three (The Poet)”…
Video: A photograph of Marc Chagall, 1928
Audio: …by Marc Chagall, and tell you why I think it is truly a masterpiece.
Video: The painting “Half-Past Three (The Poet),” 1911, by Marc Chagall
Audio: It was owned by three prominent collectors of modern art before coming to Philadelphia in 1950.
Video: Photographs of Herwarth Walden
Audio: In 1914, the German publisher and art dealer Herwarth Walden presented the first solo exhibition of…
Video: A black-and-white photograph of paintings by Chagall hanging in a gallery
Audio: …Chagall’s work at his gallery Der Sturm in Berlin.
Video: A photograph of Herwarth Walden with his second wife Nell at home with the painting “Half-Past Three (The Poet),” 1911, by Marc Chagall hanging on their wall
Audio: It is likely that Walden purchased Half-Past Three for his own collection then.
Video: Timothy Rub standing next to the painting “Half-Past Three (The Poet),” 1911, by Marc Chagall
Audio: The painting was later acquired in 1926 by the influential…
Video: A photograph of Christian Zervos
Audio: …art critic, publisher and collector Christian Zervos, who in turn sold it in 1937 to the celebrated American collectors…
Video: A photograph of Louise and Walter Arensberg with Marcel Duchamp
Audio: …Louise and Walter Arensberg. Their agent for this transaction was the artist Marcel Duchamp, who often served as their advisor.
Video: Photographs of the interior of the apartment of Louise and Walter Arensberg in New York
Audio: Their great collection—with masterpieces by Pablo Picasso, Georges Braque, Fernand Léger, Henri Matisse and Duchamp himself—came to Philadelphia in 1950, making it a destination for anyone interested in the history of modern art.
Video: Scene of Paris street life and people sitting at cafés, early 1900s
Audio: These renowned artists were all living in Paris in the early twentieth century, a time when the city was a magnet for artists throughout Europe—indeed, from around the world.
Video: A photograph of Marc Chagall, 1920s
Audio: One of the most unlikely and brilliant of these émigrés was Marc Chagall, a young artist from…
Video: A photograph of the city of Vitebsk
Audio: …Vitebsk, a small city in Belarus…
Video: Marc Chagall’s childhood home in Vitebsk
Audio: …at that time part of the Russian Empire.
Video: A photograph of the family of Marc Chagall
Audio: Born in 1887 into a working-class family of devout Hasidic Jews…
Video: An oil portrait of Marc Chagall, c. 1915, by Yuri Pen
Audio: …there was very little in Chagall’s upbringing or early education that…
Video: Photographs of Marc Chagall
Audio: …foreshadowed his decision to become an artist; but once he did, that choice seems to have been preordained, so rapidly did his…
Video: The painting “I and the Village,” 1911, and the painting “The Wailing Wall,” 1932, by Marc Chagall
Audio: …talent develop and give evidence of what would come to characterize all of his work: a fertile visual imagination and…
Video: A photograph of Marc Chagall smiling
Audio: …an abiding—and irrepressible—sense of joy.
Video: A photograph of Clichy Place, Paris, 1910, and footage of Paris street scenes, c. 1910
Audio: By the time he made the momentous decision to move to Paris in 1910…
Video: The paintings “Le Pont de Passy et la Tour Eiffel,” 1911; “Lovers,” 1929; “The Musician with the Red Beard,” 1919; “Paris through the Window,” 1913; “Jew with Torah,” 1925; and “Solitude,” 1933, by Marc Chagall
Audio: …he had already become the Chagall we have come to know and to love. Chagall brought much to Paris with him: his distinctive draftsmanship and his gift as a colorist, already well developed; his lovely and, at times, childlike sense of humor and delight that has endeared his art to so many; his lifelong embrace of Jewish culture and customs.
Video: The paintings Self-portrait, 1909; “The City of Paris,” 1912; and Eiffel Tower, 1911, by Robert Delaunay
Audio: In turn, Paris would give him exposure to new ideas and to the most radical visual art experiments of the day.
Video: Photographs of La Ruche in Danzig Passage, Paris
Audio: Chagall often worked well into the night, in the studio that he had taken in La Ruche (or “The Beehive,” after its oddly shaped form), a building occupied by a number of artists and writers in the area of the city known…
Video: The drawing “Six o’clock in the Evening, an animated Boulevard Montparnasse,” 1920, by Georges Paul Leroux, followed by a photograph of a street in Montparnasse
Audio: …as Montparnasse. It was there that he found a vibrant community of creative and likeminded artists…
Video: The painting “Tea Time (Woman with a Teaspoon),” 1911, by Jean Metzinger, shown next to a photograph of Jean Metzinger, c. 1912; a photograph of Guillaume Apollinaire shown next to the cover of “Calligrammes, Poems of Peace and War,” 1913–1916, by Guillaume Apollinaire; and a photograph of Blaise Cendrars, c. 1907, shown next to the cover of “Feuilles de route,” 1924, by Blaise Cendrars
Audio: …many of whom sought to blend their own experiences and cultural backgrounds with the latest advances in modern art.
Video: A photograph of La Ruche followed by a photo of Chagall
Audio: And it was there—in La Ruche—that Chagall produced many of his earliest masterpieces, including…
Video: The painting “Half-Past Three (The Poet),” 1911, by Marc Chagall
Audio: …“Half-Past Three (The Poet),” which was painted in the winter of 1911–1912. What’s most striking about this work is that it is so personal: a record of life in Chagall’s studio and at the same time a meditation—as so many great paintings are—on the act of artistic creation.
Video: Timothy Rub standing next to the painting “Half-Past Three (The Poet),” 1911, by Marc Chagall
Audio: The subject of this picture—the figure sitting at the table in the studio—is not Chagall himself, but a friend and fellow Russian who also lived in The Beehive, a poet named Mazin.
Video: The painting “Half-Past Three (The Poet),” 1911, by Marc Chagall
Audio: Here he is shown dressed in blue, sitting with his left elbow propped on a table, a cup in one hand. In his other hand he holds a pen poised over an open book of poetry, in Cyrillic, the alphabet used in writing the Russian language. On the table are some familiar objects: a knife, fork and glass, along with a few pieces of fruit and a bottle of wine. In the upper right-hand corner of the painting there is a window curtain decorated with flowers. Finally, and most curiously, sitting just next to the poet is a cat, its tongue licking the sleeve of his jacket.
Video: Timothy Rub standing next to the painting “Half-Past Three (The Poet),” 1911, by Marc Chagall
Audio: If the elements of this painting are conventional, Chagall’s treatment of them is anything but.
Video: The painting “Seated Nude,” 1909–10, by Pablo Picasso; and the painting “Le Verre,” 1911, by Georges Braque
Audio: Responding to the radical new style of painting known as Cubism pioneered by Picasso and Braque…
Video: Timothy Rub standing next to the painting “Half-Past Three (The Poet),” 1911, by Marc Chagall
Audio: …he rendered both the image of the poet seated at the table in his small studio and the space of the studio itself in a truly…
Video: The painting “Half-Past Three (The Poet),” 1911, by Marc Chagall
Audio: …unconventional way: as a set of intersecting and overlapping lines and prismatic planes in red, blue, green and white that jostle against each other like the pieces of a large and unruly jigsaw puzzle. The objects depicted and the space around them seem to merge together, confusing the eye and making it difficult to distinguish foreground from background. The table and the bottle of wine perched precariously on it tilt upward at a steep angle—echoed by the seated figure’s legs and the fringe of the curtain.
Video: Timothy Rub standing next to the painting “Half-Past Three (The Poet),” 1911, by Marc Chagall
Audio: These compositional strategies invest the scene with a dynamism and, at the same time, a sense of instability.
Video: The painting “Half-Past Three (The Poet),” 1911, by Marc Chagall
Audio: Has the poet had too much to drink? And is that why everything around him—including his own head—seems to be off-kilter?
Video: The painting “Oh God,” 1919, and the painting “The Fiancée with Blue Face,” 1939–62, by Marc Chagall
Audio: This is a motif that Chagall used with some frequency throughout his career and seems to be the visual equivalent…
Video: The painting “Half-Past Three (The Poet),” 1911, by Marc Chagall
Audio: …of a Yiddish idiom that can be translated as “a turned head,” signifying a state of emotional giddiness.
Video: Timothy Rub standing next to the painting “Half-Past Three (The Poet),” 1911, by Marc Chagall
Audio: However we may choose to interpret this scene, the key, I think, is the time of night...
Video: The painting “Half-Past Three (The Poet),” 1911, by Marc Chagall
Audio: …when everyone else is fast asleep, leaving the poet in solitude seeking inspiration in the world of his own imagination.
Video: Timothy Rub standing next to the painting “Half-Past Three (The Poet),” 1911, by Marc Chagall
Audio: Note the horizontal bars of color…
Video: The painting “Half-Past Three (The Poet),” 1911, by Marc Chagall
Audio: …red mostly, as well as green, yellow and white—on the page opposite the text in the book open on the poet’s lap. It’s a telling detail…
Video: Timothy Rub standing next to the painting “Half-Past Three (The Poet),” 1911. by Marc Chagall
Audio: …that calls to mind the equivalence often drawn between painting and poetry.
Video: The painting “Half-Past Three (The Poet),” 1911, by Marc Chagall
Audio: In this regard “Half-Past Three” can be considered as something of an artistic manifesto, a celebration of individual creativity and of the power of our imagination—be it in the form of a painting or a poem—to, quite literally, change the world.
Video: The painting “Self-Portrait with White Collar,” 1914, by Marc Chagall
Audio: This was an audacious statement for a young man to make at the outset of his career.
Video: Photographs of Marc Chagall
Audio: But it was also prophetic. Chagall went on to fulfill the promise of this bold vision—formed in the quiet of his own studio in the midst of a city that was, at that very moment…
Video: A Paris street scene, c. 1900
Audio: …poised on the cusp of an artistic revolution…
Video: A photograph of Marc Chagall
Audio: …and to become one of the most beloved artists of the twentieth century.
Video: Timothy Rub standing next to the painting “Half-Past Three (The Poet),” 1911, by Marc Chagall
Audio: I want to thank you for taking the time to watch today and to learn more about “Half-Past Three (The Poet),” by Marc Chagall. I encourage you to join the conversation and discuss the work with friends and family. And please visit the Bank of America Masterpiece Moment website to sign up for alerts and ensure that you never miss a moment.
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Title treatment art:
Henry Ossawa Tanner (American, 1859–1937)
“The Arch,” 1919 (detail)
Brooklyn Museum, Gift of Alfred W. Jenkins, 32.10 (Photo: Brooklyn Museum, 32.10_SL1.jpg)
Marc Chagall (French, b. Russia, 1887–1985)
© 2021 Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York / ADAGP, Paris
“Oh God,” 1919
Oil and distemper on paper, mounted on cardboard
22 3/4” × 18 5/16” (57.8 × 46.5 cm)
The Louis E. Stern Collection, 1963
The Philadelphia Museum of Art / Art Resource, NY
“Half-Past Three (The Poet),” 1911
Oil on canvas
6’ 5 1/8” × 57” (195.9 × 144.8 cm)
The Louise and Walter Arensberg Collection, 1950
Philadelphia Museum of Art
“I and the Village,” 1911
Oil on canvas
6’ 3 5/8” × 59 5/8” (192.1 × 151.4 cm)
The Museum of Modern Art, New York, Mrs. Simon Guggenheim Fund
World History Archive / Alamy Stock Photo
“The Wailing Wall,” 1932
28 3/4” × 36 1/4” (73 × 92 cm)
Oil on canvas
Tel Aviv Museum of Art
“Le Pont de Passy et la Tour Eiffel,” 1911
Oil on canvas
23 3/4” × 32” (60.3 × 81.3 cm)
The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York
“Lovers,” 1929
Oil on canvas
21 3/4” × 15” (55 × 38 cm)
Tel Aviv Museum of Art
Gift of Oscar Fischer, Tel Aviv, c. 1940
Photo: Avraham Hai
“The Musician with the Red Beard,” 1919
Oil on canvas
24” × 18 1/2” (61 × 47 cm)
Tel Aviv Museum of Art
“Paris through the Window,” 1913
Oil on canvas
53 9/16” × 55 7/8” (136 × 141.9 cm)
Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York, Solomon R. Guggenheim Founding Collection
Peter Barritt / Alamy Stock Photo
“Jew with Torah,” 1925
Gouache on paper, mounted on board
26 7/8” × 20 1/8” (68 × 51 cm)
Tel Aviv Museum of Art
“Solitude,” 1933
Oil on canvas
40 1/4” × 66 1/2” (102 × 169 cm)
Tel Aviv Museum of Art
“The Fiancée with Blue Face,” 1939–62
Oil on canvas
39 3/8” × 31 1/2” (100 × 80 cm)
Private Collection
Banque d’Images, ADAGP / Art Resource, NY
“Self-Portrait with White Collar,” 1914
Oil on cardboard
11 1/2” × 10 1/8” (29.2 × 25.7 cm)
The Louis E. Stern Collection, 1963
Philadelphia Museum of Art
Artepics / Alamy Stock Photo
Jasper Johns (American, b. 1930)
© 2021 Jasper Johns / Licensed by VAGA at Artists Rights Society (ARS), NY
“In the Studio,” 1982
Encaustic and collage on canvas with objects
“Painting with Two Balls,” 1960
Encaustic and collage on canvas with objects
“Fall,” 1986
Encaustic on canvas
Pablo Picasso (Spanish, 1881–1973)
© 2021 Estate of Pablo Picasso / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York
“Three Musicians,” 1921
Oil on canvas
Philadelphia Museum of Art
“Seated Nude,” 1909–10
Oil on canvas
“Nude Woman,” 1910
Oil on canvas
“Violin and Guitar,” 1913
Oil on canvas
Henri Matisse (French, 1869–1954)
“Mademoiselle Yvonne Landsberg,” 1914
Oil on canvas
Philadelphia Museum of Art
© 2021 Succession H. Matisse / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York
Fernand Léger (French, 1881–1955)
“The City,” 1919
Oil on canvas
Philadelphia Museum of Art
© 2021 Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York / ADAGP, Paris
Marc Chagall, 1928
Image: Sueddeutsche Zeitung Photo / Alamy Stock Photo
Portrait of the gallerist and publisher Herwarth Walden (1878–1941), 1918
Private Collection
HIP / Art Resource, NY
Herwarth Walden in front of his portrait bust by William Wauer (probably a clipping from a magazine). Herwarth Walden (1878–1941), German writer and publisher, editor of the magazine “Der Sturm,” c. 1918
bpk Bildagentur / Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin, Stiftung Preussischer Kulturbesitz, Berlin, Germany / Art Resource, NY
View into the solo exhibition of Marc Chagall in Herwarth Walden’s Der Sturm gallery in Berlin, Potsdamer Straße 134a. 1914. Herwarth Walden (1878–1941), German writer and publisher, editor of the magazine “Der Sturm.” Inv. Dep.41, 74v (unten). Manuscript Division.
bpk Bildagentur / Art Resource, NY
Herwarth Walden with his second wife Nell in their dining room in the apartment at Potsdamer Strasse, Berlin (in the background on the wall are two paintings by Marc Chagall). Herwarth Walden (1878–1941), German writer and art critic, publisher of the magazine “Der Sturm.” Berlin, 1916
bpk Bildagentur / Art Resource, NY
Varengeville-sur-Mer, Normandy, outside the house of American architect Paul Nelson and his wife, designer Francine Nelson, 1934. Standing in the foreground: Christian Zervos; seated: Yvonne Zervos; behind her: Francine Nelson and Nina Kandinsky; back right, wearing a hat: Kandinsky; to the right of him: Susi and Alberto Magnelli.
Digital Image © CNAC/MNAM, Dist. RMN-Grand Palais / Art Resource, NY
The Arensbergs with Duchamp, date unknown
The Louise and Walter Arensberg Archives
Philadelphia Museum of Art Library & Archives
The Philadelphia Museum of Art / Art Resource, NY
Charles Sheeler (American, 1883–1965)
Interior, Arensberg’s apartment, New York, after May 1919
Casein silver print
The Louise and Walter Arensberg Collection, 1950
The Philadelphia Museum of Art / Art Resource, NY
View of the Walter Arensberg apartment, New York, after May 1919
Casein silver print
The Louise and Walter Arensberg Collection, 1950
The Philadelphia Museum of Art / Art Resource, NY
Interior of the apartment of Louise and Walter Arensberg in New York, after May 1919
Casein silver print
The Louise and Walter Arensberg Collection, 1950
The Philadelphia Museum of Art / Art Resource, NY
Boulevard des Italiens, Paris, c. 1900
Lebrecht Music & Arts / Alamy Stock Photo
Montparnasse Café, 1924
Chronicle / Alamy Stock Photo
A scene from “La Bohème,” Act II, at the Café Momus, the central meeting point of Bohemian society, from a production at the Opéra-Comique, Paris, June 1898
Chronicle / Alamy Stock Photo
Portrait of Marc Chagall, late 1920s
Image: Heritage Image Partnership Ltd / Alamy Stock Photo
City of Vitebsk, White Russia
Wikimedia Commons
Marc Chagall’s childhood home in Vitebsk, Belarus. Currently one of the sites of the Marc Chagall Museum, 2013
Image courtesy Marc Chagall Museum, Vitebsk, Belarus
Family of Marc Chagall, n.d.
Photo: © Archives Marc et Ida Chagall, Paris
Marc Chagall, c. 1915
Photo: © Archives Marc et Ida Chagall, Paris
Fred Stein (German, 1909–1967)
“Marc Chagall, New York,” 1941
© Fred Stein Archive
Image: dpa picture alliance / Alamy Stock Photo
Marc Chagall, 1927
Image: Sueddeutsche Zeitung Photo / Alamy Stock Photo
Clichy Place, Paris, 1910
Pictures Now / Alamy Stock Photo
Robert Delaunay (French, 1885–1941)
Self-portrait, 1909
Oil on canvas
Centre Pompidou, Paris
agefotostock / Alamy Stock Photo
“The City of Paris,” 1912
Oil on canvas
Toledo Museum of Art, Ohio
World History Archive / Alamy Stock Photo
“Eiffel Tower,” 1911
Oil on canvas
Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York
Vital Archive / Alamy Stock Photo
Limot (Walter Lichtenstein) (German, 1902–1984)
“La Ruche, Passage de Dantzig, Montparnasse,” n.d.
Album / Alamy Stock Photo
La Ruche, designed by Alexandre Gustave Eiffel
Robert Gilhooly / Alamy Stock Photo
Jonathan Eastland (British, b. 1945)
“La Ruche in Danzig Passage, Paris,” n.d.
Ajax News & Feature Service / Alamy Stock Photo
Georges Paul Leroux (French, 1877–1957)
“Six o’clock in the Evening, an animated Boulevard Montparnasse,” 1920
Gouache and black chalk (fusain) on paper
Photo: Bertrand Prévost
Digital Image © CNAC/MNAM, Dist. RMN-Grand Palais / Art Resource, NY
Paris, c. 1900, rue de l’Arrivée, Avenue du Maine, Montparnasse
The History Collection / Alamy Stock Photo
Jean Metzinger (French, 1883–1956)
“Tea Time (Woman with a Teaspoon),” 1911
Oil on cardboard
The Louise and Walter Arensberg Collection
Philadelphia Museum of Art
© 2021 Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York / ADAGP, Paris
Artepics / Alamy Stock Photo
The cover of “Calligrammes, Poems of Peace and War,” 1913–1916, by Guillaume Apollinaire
Published posthumously in 1918. Cover printed and edited in Paris in 1918.
Biblioteca Espiscopa. Barcelona
Album / Art Resource, NY
The cover of “Feuilles de route,” 1924, by Blaise Cendrars
The Museum of Modern Art Library, New York
Digital Image © The Museum of Modern Art / Licensed by SCALA / Art Resource, NY
La Ruche, Paris, France
Christophe Boisvieux / Alamy Stock Photo
Marc Chagall with his wife Bella, 1922
Photo: © Archives Marc et Ida Chagall, Paris
Georges Braque (French, 1882–1963)
“Le Verre,” 1911
Oil on canvas
© 2021 Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York / ADAGP, Paris
World History Archive / Alamy Stock Photo
Marc Chagall with his wife Bella, 1926
Image: Sueddeutsche Zeitung Photo / Alamy Stock Photo
Boulevard des Italiens, Paris, early twentieth century
Lebrecht Music & Arts / Alamy Stock Photo
Marc Chagall in his studio in St. Paul de Vence, near Nice, in front of his painting of “The Song of Songs,” 1975
Image: Tim Wright / Alamy Stock Photo
“Take the “A” Train”
Written by Billy Strayhorn
Performed by Oscar Peterson
Courtesy of Verve Records under license from Universal Music Enterprises
© 2021 Bank of America Corporation.
