Marc Chagall
After returning from exile in 1948 Chagall worked for decades at the Mourlot lithography studio, principally with the printer Charles Sorlier. Much of his print output began there.
Atelier Mourlot, 47 rue du Montparnasse
Still standing
Outside only
Someone else
The lithography workshop where Marc Chagall spent decades after the war making colour prints — the same presses that printed for Picasso, Matisse, Braque and Miró.
- 47 rue du Montparnasse, 75014 Paris
- The Mourlot lithography workshop, from the 1920s
The place, briefly
Fernand Mourlot ran a lithography works that became, for about forty years, the place where modern painting was translated into print. Picasso, Matisse, Braque, Miró, Léger and Calder all worked on these presses, usually alongside the printers rather than at a distance from them.
Marc Chagall came back from his American exile in 1948 and began working here, and the relationship lasted decades. His principal collaborator was the printer Charles Sorlier, who became the person who understood how to get Chagall's colour onto a stone better than anyone including, at times, Chagall.
This matters more for Chagall than for most of the others. Lithography suited his work — flat saturated colour, drawn line, layered transparency — and the prints are not reproductions of paintings but original works made for the medium. A very large part of his late output is print, and much of it began in this building.
The workshop has gone from the address. What it produced is in museums everywhere.
Key facts
- Fernand Mourlot
- Worked here for decades after returning from exile in 1948
- Charles Sorlier, his principal collaborator
- Picasso, Matisse, Braque, Miró, Léger, Calder
- Lithography suited his flat saturated colour; the prints are original works, not reproductions
- The workshop is gone; exterior only
Timeline
Chagall returns to France from the United States and begins working at Mourlot.
The long collaboration with the printer Charles Sorlier produces much of his print output.
On the map
Questions before you go
What was Atelier Mourlot?
Fernand Mourlot's lithography workshop, the printer for much of twentieth-century modern art — Picasso, Matisse, Braque, Miró and Chagall among them.
Are Chagall's lithographs reproductions of his paintings?
No. They are original works made for the medium, drawn on the stone. Lithography's flat colour and layered transparency suited his painting unusually well.
People who knew this place
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Le Select
The all-night café of the Vavin crossroads and the closest thing Ernest Hemingway's The Sun Also Rises has to a home address — the crowd always ends up at the Select.
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Paris, one address at a time.
The cafés, studios, and walk-up flats where the work was made — one story from the map in every letter.