Permanent collection | Ikeda Museum of 20th Century Art

Permanent collection

Marc Chagall

1887-1985　Born in the Jewish quarter of Byelorrusia (now known as the Republic of Belarus), and active as an artist in France. Chagall developed his wondrous, surrealistic style in paintings and in a wide range of other fields too.

Parade
1970 Gouache 75 x 56 cm

The parade in this piece was a lovable theme showing Chagall’s perception that life is a circus, with acrobats, violinists, dancers and animals. In a blue space where people’s joy and sadness melt together, a circus troupe is given a sense of weightlessness and a brilliant parade is unfolding. Chagall, a magician with a love of color and form, is the producer of this wonderful parade in which reality and dreams merge.

Henri Matisse

1869-1954　French artist. After working with the impressionists and new impressionists, became a central figure in the Fauvisme movement. A 20th century master of equal stature to Picasso.

Mimosa
1949　Collage 148 x 96.5 cm

Mimosas decorate the passage of floats at a flower festival in Nice, in southern France. Matisse produced cut-out images with these flowers as his subject in the art studio at Hotel Regina. A tapestry design had been commissioned by the United States’ Alexander Smith and Sons Carpet Company. With health reasons also a factor, Matisse devoted his later years to cut-out pictures, noting that “Cutting out colored paper is similar to the forming of stone work of a sculptor forming stone.” Such collage should not be seen merely as combinations of painting, sketching and sculpting, but rather should be viewed as an overall image of Matisse’s art – such was the importance that Matisse attached to this means of expression.

Moise Kisling

1891-1953　Born in Poland. Was active as a painter of the Ecole de Paris. Painted female images full of melancholy and sensuality, evoking a richly exotic mood with the use of beautifully vivid colors.

Female Clown
1927 Oil painting 161 x 113 cm

This female clown is taking a breather after returning from the stage to her dressing room. From her facial expression and posture, a vague sense of melancholy and isolation looms. While the females depicted by Kisling alway give a feeling of sensuality and warm charm, they are shadowed by hopeless lonely contemplation. This Kisling masterpiece is based on an axis of complementary colors such as the red of the woman’s costume and the green of the guitar, around which the female clown’s strong sense of existence is skillfully presented within a veil of sorrow.