“Marc Chagall, Flowers and the French Riviera: The Color of Dreams” opens February 12, 2017, in the Marie Selby Botanical Gardens, 900 South Palm Avenue, Sarasota, Florida.

The exhibition is the first to examine the profound impact Chagall’s love of the natural world had on the modernist master, a story that naturally unfolds in a botanical garden. Built around Chagall’s masterwork The Lovers (1937), on loan from the Israel Museum in Jerusalem, “The Color of Dreams” recreates the artist’s French Riviera and debuts two of his paintings that have never been publicly exhibited.

In the glass house conservatory, there will be large-scale recreations of his iconic stained glass windows interwoven among the live plants and flowers. Outside, Selby’s Bayfront gardens will be transformed with orchids, bromeliads, bougainvillea and citrus to evoke the south of France, the place Chagall called home for many years.

Inside Selby Gardens’ Museum of Botany & the Arts, the artist’s story unfolds in a series of archival photographs by his estate. The images are accompanied by Chagall’s personal items, including vases that would have held flowers in his studio.

Payne Mansion will also feature the paintings that inspired the exhibition: The Lovers and the two private paintings making their public debut in the exhibition, Bouquets de Lilas à Saint Paul de Vence (Bouquets of Lilacs at Saint-Paul – pictured, above left) (1978) and Couple aux Muguets (Couple with Lilies of the Valley) (1973).

This is the inaugural exhibition in the Jean & Alfred Goldstein Exhibition Series at Selby Gardens. Each installation of the series will blend nature and botanical-inspired master artworks.

The “Color of Dreams” closes July 31, 2017. It was curated by Dr. Carol Ockman, curator at-large for Marie Selby Botanical Gardens and Robert Sterling Clark Professor of Art at Williams College.

A keynote lecture by Dr. Ockman will discuss the exhibition, Chagall’s life, the various places he lived, and how that affected the artist’s outlook on life. This event at 11:30 a.m. February 13, 2017, includes a plated lunch by Michael’s On East served at Michael’s on the Bay at Selby Gardens. Tickets are available online.

Additional associated horticulture and arts classes, lectures, cultural performances and special events are scheduled throughout the exhibition and detailed online.

(Image of Bouquets of Lilacs at Saint-Paul courtesy of Selby Gardens)