Marc Chagall in Gordes

Marc Chagall left Paris in 1940, concerned about his possible arrest as a 'degenerate' by the occupying German troops.  Although his work had been popular in Germany, by 1937  the new German leadership had begun to mock his art, describing his paintings as "green, purple, and red Jews shooting out of the earth, fiddling on violins, flying through the air ... representing [an] assault on Western civilization." 

Packing up his Paris studio, Chagall took the paintings off their stretchers and piled them into a taxi. The Chagall family initially moved to Saint Dyé-sur-Loire, then in May 1940 they moved to Gordes, at the behest of his friend André Lhote who already had a house there. They bought an old mill in the Fontaine Basse area of the village.  All his work was transported there and he continued to paint in the studio at the top of the house.

Still Life Gordes 1940

During the winter of 1940-1941 Chagall resumed work on The Madonna of the Village.

He was very happy in Gordes and remarked " There, in the south of France, for the first time in my life, I saw that rich greenness—the like of which I had never seen in my own country." However, Chagall was not safe from being deported in Gordes.  Varian Fry, envoy of the Emergency Rescue Committee in France, who had arrived in Marseille with the intention of rescuing intellectuals persecuted by the Nazis and helping them to escape from Europe, visited Chagall and offered to help him escape to America. Chagall initially refused the invitation, but when the Vichy government began interning Jews, he realised he had no choice

Chagall on the steps to his studio

 Of meeting Chagall Varian Fry wrote;

“Spent the week-end with the Chagalls at Gordes. We passed two truckloads of German soldiers between Marseille and Aix and not another car all the way.  We arrived in time for lunch.  Gordes is charming, tumbled down old town on the edge of a vast and peaceful valley.  It used to manufacture shoes, but when shoe-making machinery was introduced its craftsmen moved away and most of the town is in ruins.  The Chagall’s house is the only one in the immediate neighbourhood which had not fallen in.  I can see why they don't want to leave it is an enchanted place.  Chagall is a nice child, vain and simple.  He likes to talk about his pictures and the world, and he slops around in folded old pants and dark blue shirt.  His “studio” contains a big kitchen table, a few wicker chairs, a cheap screen, a coal stove, two easels and his pictures. No chic at all, as chez Matisse.

Visit by Varian Fry, Bella and Marc in the garden with Madonna of the village

In April 1941, Marc and his wife Bella left Gordes for Marseille on their way to the United States.  They crossed the French-Spanish border by train, then continued onto Lisbon, where they arrived on 11 May. In Lisbon they waited until mid-June to embark for New York.  They left their daughter Ida and her husband behind in the house in Gordes giving them the task of arranging the transportation of Chagall's 600 kilos of paintings. Chagall remained in America until after the war when he returned to France.  He went to live in Vence on the Cote d'Azur alongside Picasso, Matisse and Braque.

The Chagall family retained the house in Gordes, Marc staying there occasionally with his second wife Vava.  Ida and her second husband took the house on, living and working there until Ida eventually sold it to its present occupier whom we met when taking this photograph.