He formed a business relationship with French art dealer Ambroise Vollard. This inspired him to begin creating etchings for a series of illustrated books, including Gogol's "Dead Souls", the Bible, and the "La Fontaine's Fables". These illustrations would eventually come to represent his finest printmaking efforts. In 1924, he travelled to Brittany and painted "La fenêtre sur l'Île-de-Bréhat". By 1926 he had his first exhibition in the United States at the Reinhardt gallery of New York which included about 100 works, although he did not travel to the opening. He instead stayed in France, "painting ceaselessly", notes Baal-Teshuva. It was not until 1927 that Chagall made his name in the French art world, when art critic and historian Maurice Raynal awarded him a place in his book "Modern French Painters". However, Raynal was still at a loss to accurately describe Chagall to his readers: