Marc Chagall
Queen of the Circus1974

On view:

Geffen Galleries

Oil painting with crowded dreamlike scene: central woman in red top and ruffled skirt, figure with horse head offering flowers, ghostly figures and glowing orb in gray background

Artist or Maker: Marc Chagall
Belarus, active France, 1887-1985
Title: Queen of the Circus
Culture: French
Date Made: 1974
Medium: Oil on canvas
Dimensions: Canvas: 45 5/8 × 37 in. (115.89 × 93.98 cm) Frame: 46 1/2 × 45 5/8 × 4 3/4 in. (118.11 × 115.89 × 12.07 cm)
Credit Line: Gift of A. Jerrold Perenchio
Accession Number: M.2025.64.22
Classification: Paintings
Collecting Area: European Painting and Sculpture
Curatorial Notes: Chagall’s approach to painting emerged from a strain of artistic fascination with mysticism and the supernatural that nourished Romanticism and Symbolism and reached its apogee in Dada and Surrealism around the time of World War I. What set him apart was his incorporation of folkloric and biblical themes into his vibrantly colored canvases. Born a Russian Jew into a family of modest means, Chagall’s grounding in the religious and cultural practices of turn-of-the-century western Russia defined his imagery for his entire career.

Moving to Paris in 1910, Chagall became immersed in the Parisian avant-garde and the circle of Guillaume Apollinaire—poet, champion of Cubism, and forefather of Surrealism. Though completed half a century later, The Queen of the Circus embodies the intellectual and formal concerns that had been incubating in Chagall’s work since the 1920s. Figures, animals, and musical instruments materialize in a spray of color across the picture plane. The sophisticated palette comprises vivid greens, deep magentas, and cobalt blues that work harmoniously alongside bursts of yellow and acidic orange. The interior of a circus is roughly defined by the ring and audience in the background, but direct references to an actual event, as well as perspective and narrative, end there. Rather, elements both large and small are deployed without a consistent perspectival strategy, resulting in a playful, fantastical artistic performance. As Chagall said of his semi-referential worlds: “Judge me by form and color, by my philosophy, not by the separate symbols. One can see all the questions and answers in the pictures themselves. Everyone can see them in his own way, interpret what he sees and how he sees.”

2024
Provenance: [Galerie Maeght, Paris, possibly acquired from the artist, c. 1975]. Anonymous (sale, London, Sotheby Parke Bernet, 31 March 1982, lot 88, to); A. J. Perenchio (1930–2017), Los Angeles; (sale, New York, Christie’s, 15 May 1985, lot 61, bought in), gifted 2025 to; Los Angeles County Museum of Art
Selected Bibliography: Lehmbeck, Leah, ed. Impressionist and Modern Art: The A. Jerrold Perenchio Collection. Los Angeles: Los Angeles County Museum of Art; Munich: DelMonico Books/Prestel, 2016.
Copyright: © Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York / ADAGP, Paris, photo © Fredrik Nilsen

Marc Chagall
Queen of the Circus1974

On view:

Geffen Galleries

Artist or Maker: Marc Chagall
Belarus, active France, 1887-1985
Title: Queen of the Circus
Culture: French
Date Made: 1974
Medium: Oil on canvas
Dimensions: Canvas: 45 5/8 × 37 in. (115.89 × 93.98 cm) Frame: 46 1/2 × 45 5/8 × 4 3/4 in. (118.11 × 115.89 × 12.07 cm)
Credit Line: Gift of A. Jerrold Perenchio
Accession Number: M.2025.64.22
Classification: Paintings
Collecting Area: European Painting and Sculpture
Curatorial Notes: Chagall’s approach to painting emerged from a strain of artistic fascination with mysticism and the supernatural that nourished Romanticism and Symbolism and reached its apogee in Dada and Surrealism around the time of World War I. What set him apart was his incorporation of folkloric and biblical themes into his vibrantly colored canvases. Born a Russian Jew into a family of modest means, Chagall’s grounding in the religious and cultural practices of turn-of-the-century western Russia defined his imagery for his entire career.

Moving to Paris in 1910, Chagall became immersed in the Parisian avant-garde and the circle of Guillaume Apollinaire—poet, champion of Cubism, and forefather of Surrealism. Though completed half a century later, The Queen of the Circus embodies the intellectual and formal concerns that had been incubating in Chagall’s work since the 1920s. Figures, animals, and musical instruments materialize in a spray of color across the picture plane. The sophisticated palette comprises vivid greens, deep magentas, and cobalt blues that work harmoniously alongside bursts of yellow and acidic orange. The interior of a circus is roughly defined by the ring and audience in the background, but direct references to an actual event, as well as perspective and narrative, end there. Rather, elements both large and small are deployed without a consistent perspectival strategy, resulting in a playful, fantastical artistic performance. As Chagall said of his semi-referential worlds: “Judge me by form and color, by my philosophy, not by the separate symbols. One can see all the questions and answers in the pictures themselves. Everyone can see them in his own way, interpret what he sees and how he sees.”

2024
Provenance: [Galerie Maeght, Paris, possibly acquired from the artist, c. 1975]. Anonymous (sale, London, Sotheby Parke Bernet, 31 March 1982, lot 88, to); A. J. Perenchio (1930–2017), Los Angeles; (sale, New York, Christie’s, 15 May 1985, lot 61, bought in), gifted 2025 to; Los Angeles County Museum of Art
Selected Bibliography: Lehmbeck, Leah, ed. Impressionist and Modern Art: The A. Jerrold Perenchio Collection. Los Angeles: Los Angeles County Museum of Art; Munich: DelMonico Books/Prestel, 2016.