This book explores one of the most enchanting and recurrent motifs in Marc Chagall’s oeuvre: the circus. Presenting Chagall’s celebrated lithographs on this subject alongside a selection of paintings on the theme, it offers both an introduction to Chagall’s work and life and an in-depth examination of his unique vision and symbology.
  
Throughout his prolific career, Chagall returned time and again to the vivid imagery of acrobats, clowns, and fantastical performers, transforming the circus into a metaphor for the complexities, joys, and sorrows of the human experience.
 
Marc Chagall: The Circus presents Chagall’s celebrated lithographs on this subject alongside a selection of paintings on the theme, offering both an introduction to Chagall’s work and life and an in-depth examination of his unique vision and symbology. By situating these works within the context of Chagall’s personal background, his experiences as an immigrant, and his lifelong embrace of theatricality, the book illuminates how these factors shaped his circus imagery. It further contextualises these images among those of Chagall’s peers within European modernism.
 
Through a dialogue between Chagall’s circus lithographs, related paintings, and writings, this book provides readers with a multidimensional understanding of his creative process and poetic imagination. It makes an original contribution by focusing on a theme that, while central to Chagall’s art, has never been the sole subject of a comprehensive study. 
 
The book features a new translation of Chagall’s essay ‘The Circus’, first published in French in 1967 and never before published in English in its entirety.