Greeting Card
1980
Image not available — this artwork is under copyright
View on museum website →Medium
4-color lithograph on wove paper
Dimensions
image: 14.1 x 10.7 cm (5 9/16 x 4 3/16 in.) sheet: 14.1 x 21.4 cm (5 9/16 x 8 7/16 in.)
Classification
Department
CG-W
Museum
National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.
Credit
Gift of Mr. and Mrs. Gerhard E. Pinkus
Accession Number
1997.95.13
Art Historical Context
Created in 1980, Marc Chagall’s “Greeting Card” represents a late-career work by the celebrated Russian-French modernist. Chagall, whose career spanned much of the twentieth century, remained deeply engaged with printmaking even into his nineties. His distinctive style—marked by floating figures, luminous color, and a poetic blend of memory and fantasy—finds intimate expression in this small-scale lithograph. The four-color lithograph on wove paper demonstrates Chagall’s mastery of a medium he valued for its ability to translate his vibrant palette into multiples. Lithography allowed fine gra...
About the Artist
Marc Chagall
Marc Chagall, born Moishe Shagal on July 7, 1887, in Liozna near Vitebsk in the Russian Empire (now Belarus), grew up as the eldest of nine children in a devout Jewish family confined to the Pale of Settlement. His father worked as a herring merchant's porter, while his mother sold groceries from home, instilling in young Chagall a deep connection to Hasidic Judaism and Eastern European folklore a...