Chaim Soutine

Chaim Soutine (1894-1943), a Russian painter of the School of Paris, was the main representative in France of a dynamic expressionism.

Chaim Soutine was born in Smilovitch near Minsk, the tenth of 11 children of a poor village tailor. Life in Smilovitch was typical of the Jewish ghetto in prewar Russia, and young Soutine escaped from it, first to Minsk (1907) and then to Vilna, where he studied at the School of Fine Arts (1910-1913).

Soutine then went to Paris. After studying briefly at the Atelier Cormon, he began to work on his own. He never exhibited the pictures of his early period; he often destroyed and sometimes repainted them. Only the exhibition of the Indépendants in 1937 disclosed the range and power of this ecstatic visionary who depicted the tragic melancholy of being.

Without the help of the art dealer Leopold Zborowski, to whom Soutine was introduced by his painter friend Amedeo Modigliani, Soutine might have despaired of his vocation. In 1919 Zborowski sent him to Céret in the Pyrenees, where Soutine stayed for 3 years and executed 200 paintings. Here he freed himself from the impact which Tintoretto, El Greco, Gustave Courbet, and, in particular, Rembrandt had made upon his sensitive mind, and here he created the series of frenetically painted landscape visions which established his name, such as View of Céret (ca. 1919) and Gnarled Trees (ca. 1921). The expressionist style is also typical of his portraits and still lifes, mainly dead fowl and carcasses, which, by their very subject matter, are symbols of mortality, for example, Woman in Red (ca. 1922) and Carcass of Beef (ca. 1925).

In 1925 Soutine was in Cagnes, where he suffered an emotional crisis. In 1927 he painted his famous series of choir boys. In 1929 Monsieur Marcellin Castaing and his wife offered Soutine a home in their castle near Chartres; here for a time he found peace of mind. His gift for portraiture is again seen in the fine portrait of Madame Castaing (ca. 1928).

Although Soutine traveled a great deal in France, he always returned to Paris. The German occupation worsened his already Kafkaesque state of anxiety, and he fled to the village of Champigny-sur-Vende in the Touraine to escape deportation. He died on Aug. 9, 1943, in Paris after an operation for stomach ulcers.

Further Reading

Jean Leymarie, Soutine (trans. 1964), includes an important introduction by the artist's friend Marcellin Castaing, an analysis of the art by Leymarie, and fine color plates. A monograph on the artist is Raymond Cogniat, Soutine (1952). See also the exhibition catalogs of the Museum of Modern Art, Soutine (1950); the Arts Council of Great Britain, Chaim Soutine, 1894-1943 (1963); and the Los Angeles County Art Museum, Chaim Soutine (1968).

Additional Sources

Werner, Alfred, Chaim Soutine, New York: H. N. Abrams, 1977. □

Soutine, Chaïm (1893–1943). Lithuanian-born painter who settled in France in 1913 and became one of the leading Expressionists of the École de Paris. He was born in the village of Smilovichi, near Minsk, the son of a poor Jewish clothes-mender, and he had to contend with the Orthodox Jewish prohibition on image-making (the money to go to art school came from damages after he was beaten up by the son of a rabbi). In 1910–13 he studied at the School of Fine Arts in Vilnius, his fellow students including Michel Kikoïne (1892–1968) and Pinchus Krémègne (1890–1981), with whom he kept up a friendship in Paris. His other friends in the circle of expatriate artists there included Chagall and also Modigliani, who painted a memorable portrait of him (NG, Washington, 1917). Soutine suffered from depression and lack of confidence in his own work (he was reluctant to exhibit and sometimes destroyed his own pictures), and he endured years of desperate poverty until the American collector Dr Albert C. Barnes bought a number of his paintings in 1923. Thereafter he had a prosperous career.

Soutine's work included landscapes, portraits, and figure studies of characters such as choirboys and page-boys. His style is characterized by thick, convulsive brushwork, through which he could express tenderness as well as turbulent psychological states. There is something of an affinity with van Gogh, although Soutine professed to dislike his work and felt more kinship with the Old Masters whose work he studied in the Louvre; his pictures of animal carcasses, for example, are inspired by Rembrandt's Flayed Ox. However, the gruesome intensity of works such as Side of Beef (Albright-Knox Art Gallery, Buffalo, 1925) was not gained simply through study of similar pictures, for Soutine visited abattoirs and even brought a carcass into the studio. His neighbours complained of the smell of the rotting meat and called the police, whom Soutine harangued on the subject of how much more important art was than sanitation. The filthy state in which he lived was notorious: André Salmon recalled that Soutine consulted a specialist about earache and that ‘In the canal of the painter's ear the doctor discovered, not an abscess, but a nest of bed bugs'. In 1941–3, during the German occupation, Soutine lived at Champigny-sur-Veude in Touraine, but he died in Paris after going there for an emergency operation on a stomach ulcer.

Soutine, Chaïm (b Smilovitchi, nr. Minsk, 1893; d Paris, 9 Aug. 1943). Lithuanian-born painter who settled in France in 1913 and became one of the leading Expressionists of the École de Paris. His friends in the circle of expatriate artists there included Chagall and Modigliani, who painted a memorable portrait of him (1917, NG, Washington). Soutine suffered from depression and lack of confidence in his own work (he was reluctant to exhibit and sometimes destroyed his own pictures), and he endured years of desperate poverty until the American collector Dr Albert C. Barnes bought a number of his paintings in 1923. Thereafter he was free from need, although he continued to suffer from ill health and a disposition towards self-torment. Soutine's work included landscapes, portraits, and figure studies of characters such as choirboys and page-boys. His style is characterized by thick, convulsive brushwork, through which he could express tenderness as well as turbulent psychological states. There is something of an affinity with van Gogh, although Soutine professed to dislike his work and felt more kinship with the Old Masters whose work he studied in the Louvre; his pictures of animal carcasses, for example, are inspired by Rembrandt's Flayed Ox. However, the gruesome intensity of works such as Side of Beef (1925, Albright-Knox AG, Buffalo) was not gained simply through study of similar pictures, for Soutine visited abattoirs and even brought a carcass into the studio. His neighbours complained of the smell of the rotting meat and called the police, whom Soutine harangued on the subject of how much more important art was than sanitation. The filthy state in which he lived during his years of poverty was notorious: the poet André Salmon recalled that Soutine once consulted a specialist about earache and that ‘In the canal of the painter's ear the doctor discovered, not an abscess, but a nest of bed bugs.’

Soutine, Chaïm (1893–1943). Lithuanian-born painter who settled in France in 1913 and became one of the leading Expressionists of the École de Paris. His friends in the circle of expatriate artists there included Chagall and also Modigliani, who painted a memorable portrait of him (1917, NG, Washington). Soutine suffered from depression and lack of confidence in his work (he was reluctant to exhibit and sometimes destroyed his own pictures), and he endured years of desperate poverty until the American collector Dr Albert C. Barnes bought a number of his paintings in 1923. Thereafter he was free from need, although he continued to suffer from ill health and a disposition towards self-torment. Soutine's work included landscapes, portraits, and figure studies of characters such as choirboys and pageboys. His style is characterized by thick, convulsive brushwork, through which he could express tenderness as well as turbulent psychological states. There is something of an affinity with van Gogh, although Soutine professed to dislike his work and felt more kinship with the Old Masters whose work he studied in the Louvre; his pictures of animal carcasses, for example, are inspired by Rembrandt's Flayed Ox. However, the gruesome intensity of works such as Side of Beef (1925, Albright-Knox AG, Buffalo) was not gained simply through study of similar pictures, for Soutine visited abattoirs and even brought a carcass into the studio. His neighbours complained of the smell of the rotting meat and called the police, whom Soutine harangued on the subject of how much more important art was than sanitation. The filthy state in which he lived during his years of poverty was notorious: the poet André Salmon recalled that Soutine once consulted a specialist about earache and that ‘In the canal of the painter's ear the doctor discovered, not an abscess, but a nest of bed bugs.’

Chaïm Soutine , 1894–1943, French expressionist painter, b. Lithuania. He went to Paris in 1913 and joined the bohemian society of the school of Paris . Soutine portrayed artist friends, hotel valets, choir boys, and cooks; he also painted still lifes and landscapes. His art was turbulent, slashing, and visceral. He depicted slaughterhouses and human corrosion and depravity, powerfully expressing a tortured sensibility. Characteristic is his Page Boy at Maxim's (Albright-Knox Art Gall., Buffalo), executed in brilliant color and heavy impasto. Soutine is represented in many leading collections including the Phillips Collection, Washington, D.C., and the Art Institute, Chicago. The Barnes Foundation, Merion, Pa., owns 100 of his works.

Bibliography: See catalog by M. Tuchman (1968); A. Werner, Soutine (1986).