🧵 Chaim Soutine (1893-1943) was one of the greatest modern artists. Active in France he was of Jewish Russian origin. He has always been one of my favourite painters. That he is so little known bewilders me! Here is Le Petit Pâtissier [1]
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[2] Born in present day Belarus, he studied in Vilnius at the Academy of Fine Arts (1910-3). He moved to Paris & became friends with Modigliani by 1917 & was supported by his dealer thru WWI. La Cité Falguière (c1914) & Woman (c1915)
[4] After the war Paul Guillaume became his dealer & promoted him. Portraits (1915-6). Soutine was keen to expose the emotion of his sitters & capture their personalities
[5] He looked at the world in terms of shapes & ideas. How is a metal fork different to a dead fish? Does the Cellist come 2nd to his Cello? What makes a man? Still Life with Herrings (c1916), Cellist (c1916) & Young Man with a Small Hat (c1916)
[6] I love his self-portraits. It’s as if he is carving himself out of the paint. Self-portraits (c1917), Herrings & a Bottle of Chianti (c1917) & Flowers on a Chair (c1917)
[7] His landscapes writhe with emotion & energy. To absorb yourself into one Is to feel the experience of how that landscape is encountered. House in the Woods (c1918), Houses by the Sea (c1918), La Route Peu Rassurante (c1918-8) & Landscape with a Donkey (c1918)
No need for the tone. Just answering your confusion. Perhaps I should have said, 'maybe' it was the popularity of the other two that we don't hear about him more. Please don't presume something I'm meaning that is not there. Overshadowed doesn't imply competition that's you.
I agree with you 100% Dr, B, but I think Satan probably meant he's unjustly overshadowed in the popular art canon. I myself was aware of Schiele and Chagall long before Soutine (shamefully, a 1980 ep. of Tales of the Unexpected, 'Skin', first put him on my radar). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skin_(short_story)
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