The museum's collections and their development have naturally evolved over the years since the institution was founded. They were first constituted by the collection donated by Marc Chagall and his wife in 1972, which took up the donation of the Biblical Message of 1966 and added all the preparatory work as well as many other works:
- the gouaches of the Bible of 1931.
- the 105 engravings of the Bible and their copperplates
- an important collection of lithographs, including the two suites of biblical lithographs from the magazine Verve.
- 5 sculptures, including 2 important bas-reliefs
- 1 ceramic
This 1972 donation represents more than 250 works.
Chagall continued to enrich the collections until his death by depositing copies of his illustrated books at the time of their publication or suites of his illustrations (separate edition of the illustrations, without the text).
The dation after the artist's death, in 1988, enriched the museum with 10 biblical paintings, deposited by the Musée national d'art moderne, Centre Georges Pompidou, recipient of the dations.
In 1986 and 1988, Charles Sorlier, Chagall's regular lithographer at Mourlot, donated a large collection of lithographs on biblical and secular subjects to the museum. The policy of enriching the collections of the museum's successive curators has gradually focused on a broader vision of the artist's work as a whole. Various acquisitions, purchases, deposits from the Musée National d'Art Moderne, Centre Georges Pompidou, and bequests now allow the public access to the entire body of work.
All reproductions of the works in the collections are available on the RMN website: http://www.photo.rmn.fr
To see images of the major works in the collection, click here.