Greeting Card (Female Figure with Two Heads)
1978
Image not available — this artwork is under copyright
View on museum website →Medium
5-color lithograph on wove paper
Dimensions
image: 13.9 x 11 cm (5 1/2 x 4 5/16 in.) sheet: 13.9 x 22 cm (5 1/2 x 8 11/16 in.)
Classification
Department
CG-W
Museum
National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.
Credit
Gift of Mr. and Mrs. Gerhard E. Pinkus
Accession Number
1997.95.21
Art Historical Context
Marc Chagall's *Greeting Card (Female Figure with Two Heads)*, created in 1978, exemplifies the artist's enduring fascination with dreamlike, fantastical imagery even in his late career. At 91 years old, Chagall produced this intimate 5-color lithograph on smooth wove paper, sized perfectly for personal correspondence—image 13.9 x 11 cm, sheet 13.9 x 22 cm. The surreal depiction of a female figure with two heads evokes Chagall's signature style, blending elements of Cubism, Fauvism, and his own poetic mysticism rooted in Russian Jewish folklore and memories of his Vitebsk childhood. Lithograp...
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...