TVM Basement: 20th C. European Art between the World Wars -- Chaim Soutine

20th Century European Art
20th Century Overview
part 2 of Soutine

European Art
Between the World Wars

Chaim Soutine
(part 1 of 2)

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Chaim Soutine

born: Smilovich, a Lithuanian village near Minsk (now in Belarus); 1893
died: Paris, France; 9 August 1943

1893-1906		Born tenth of eleven siblings into a Jewish family; his father was the town mender, one step lower than a tailor. Grew up in the small Lithuanian village of about 400 houses. Punished by his parents and brothers for wanting to draw. By thirteen years old he would sketch and draw on any scrap of paper he could find with charcoal.
1909	16	Soutine approached a pious Jew and asked him to pose for a portrait. The man's son and their friends beat Soutine and left him for dead. His mother complained to the authorities and Soutine was granted 25 rubles as compensation. Using the money Soutine and his friend Michel Kikoïne went to Minsk to become artists.
1910	17	Studies for then months or so with an artist named Krueger and then leaves for Vilnus, capital of Lithuania. He enrolls in the School of Fine Arts.
1913	20	July, arrives in Paris. Moves in the artists quarters in "La Ruche" with another Lithuanian painter Pincus Krémègne. Also living in "La Ruche" were Chagall, Zadkine, Archipenko, and Dobrinsky. Continues his art studies in the Atelier Fernand Cormon in the School of Fine Arts.

La Ruche
about 1915

1915

Chaim is introduced to Modigliani by Jacques Lipchitz, and Chaim and Modigliani become close friends.

1916

Léopold Zborowski becomes Soutine's art dealer at the urging of Modigliani. Soutine does odd jobs like baggage porter, worker in a Renault factory. He begins to have stomach problems and is dismissed from WWI work brigades for heath reasons.

Moves into Cité Falguière, his neighbors were Lipchitz, Miestchaninoff, and Modigliani. He is still in extreme poverty.

Note: The small letters and numbers which follow the title of a picture indicate
which specific picture is shown. These reference keys are to the Chaim
Soutine Catalogue Raisonné edited by Maurice Tuchman, Esti Dunow, and
Klaus Perls; published in 1993 by Benedikt Taschen Verlag. The catalogue
is divided into three parts which are numbered separately. TL refers to
the landscapes, TSL the still life pictures, and TP the portraits. Dates
and locations below the pictures come from the same source. Almost all
Soutine's pictures are not dated by him on the picture. So most dates
are shown as "about", even if the date is pretty well established.
Location information is provided for those pictures that are publicly accessible.
Ones without any location notation are in private hands.

Cité Falguière
(Artist's Studio) TL01
about 1916

Photographs of Cité Falguière
in Montmartre
about 1950

Woman and Dog TP02
about 1915

Young Woman
in a Rocking Chair TP09
about 1915

Man with Pipe
(M. Chauveau) TP03
about 1916

Red Houses TL02
about 1917

Red Stairs at Cagnes TL15
about 1918

Midi Landscape TL19
about 1918
Musée Calvet
Avignon, France

Still Life with Pipe TSL07
about 1916
Musée d'Art Moderne
Troyes, France

Herrings TSL01
about 1916

1917-1918

Painting of Cité Falguiére and still life pictures of food.

Short trip with Modigliani to Venice and southern France.

1919

At the urging of Leopold Zborowski Soutine goes to Céret in the French Pyrénées near the Spanish border. He lives and works in Céret painting primarily landscapes and some occasional portraits.

World War I ends.

In this period Soutine dabbled with self-portraiture. He did three and never returned to the form again:

Self with Curtain TP11
about 1917

Self with Beard TP13
about 1917

Self TP12
about 1918
On Loan: Art Museum
Princeton University
Princeton, NJ, US

Landscape and Houses TL10
about 1918
Kunstmuseum
Luzern, Switzerland

Southern France TL30
about 1919
Reuben and Edith Hecht Museum
University of Haifa, Israel

Montmartre Landscape TL27
about 1919
Museum of Art
Tel Aviv, Israel

Mad Woman TP14
about 1919

Little Pastry Cook TP27
about 1919
Barnes Foundation
Merion Station, PA, US

Gladiolas TSL34
about 1919
Brooklyn Museum
Brooklyn, New York, US

Jug with Lilies TSL22
about 1918
Rose Art Museum
Brandeis University
Waltham, MA, US

The Table TSL17
about 1919
Musée de l'Orangerie
Paris, France

Hanging Pheasant TSL20
about 1919

1920	27	Modigliani dies and his pregnant companion commits suicide the next day. While on a trip to Cagnes, Soutine hears of the deaths in Paris.
1921	28	Soutine begins to paint a series of portraits of praying men.
1922	29	Returns to Paris from Céret with more than 200 paintings.

Trees at Céret TL55 about 1920	Céret TL47 about 1920	View of Céret TL86 about 1921 Museum of Art Baltimore, MD, US
Céret Town Square TL88 about 1921 On Loan to: Art Museum Princeton University Princeton, NJ, US		Ascending Road TL87 about 1921 Galerie Rosengart Lucerne, Switzerland
Fish TSL43 about 1920 Metropolitan Museum New York, NY, US		Fish TSL44 about 1920 Desert Museum Palm Springs, California, US
Man in the Green Coat TP39 about 1921	Philosopher TP41 about 1921 Barnes Foundation Merion Station, PA, US	Praying Man TP46 about 1921

Here we leave Chaim Soutine. He is penniless, and still living on the largess of his art dealer, he has brought back to Paris over 200 paintings which he painted in the Pyrénées, but now has begun to hate them. So out of his dissatisfaction, he is beginning to slash and destroy them.

Depression has a clear hold on him.

Continue with part 2, where Chaim's fortunes change for the better.

20th Century European Art
20th Century Overview

2003-11-12

European Art Between the World Wars Chaim Soutine (part 1 of 2)

European Art Between the World Wars Chaim Soutine (part 1 of 2)

Chaim Soutine

European Art
Between the World Wars

Chaim Soutine
(part 1 of 2)

European Art
Between the World Wars

Chaim Soutine
(part 1 of 2)