CHAÏM SOUTINE 1893-1943

Born in 1893 near Minsk in Belarus Belarus, Chaim Soutine was brought up in poverty and in the rigorous Orthodox Jewish tradition. He began drawing at a very young age, usually portraits of people he knew. He went on to study at the Fine Arts in Vilnius (Lithuania). The morbid and suffering-filled memories memories of his childhood continually inform his work. his work.
Attracted by cosmopolitan Paris cosmopolitan Paris, Soutine moved to the French capital in 1913. A community of a community of avant-garde artists known as the Ecole de Paris known as the Ecole de Paris. He settled in the "Ruche", an artists' housing estate in Montparnasse, then to the Falguière studio. He regularly the Louvre, where he admired the works of the masters of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. eighteenth centuries, which had a profound effect on his painting. Living in misery, he indulged in drink and frequented prostitutes. The that haunted him also weakened his health considerably. his health considerably.
Discharged during the First World War, Soutine met Amedeo Modigliani Modigliani, who became his friend and mentor. Modigliani introduced him to his dealer Léopold Zborowski, who managed to sell around sixty of Soutine's Soutine's paintings to the wealthy American collector Dr Barnes. The artist's reputation was made.
During During the Second World War, the artist was hunted down and led a clandestine life. He died on 9 August 1943 in Paris of a gastric ulcer.
We Soutine is remembered as a shady, angry and savage character, who living apart from the artistic community. A singular painter, he on the fringes of the great avant-garde movements (Cubism, Futurism Dada and Surrealism) to develop a completely personal style. personal style. His painting is characterised by violent expressionism expressionism: his energetic brushwork and dense paste create contortions of of colour and movement. Soutine limited himself to traditionalist subjects still life, landscape and portrait. skinned or disembowelled animals characterise much of his painting and are reminiscent of the suffering of his childhood. In this way, Soutine's works are the expression of an intense emotional interiority.