Chaïm Soutine (1893–1943) grew up near Minsk in a deeply religious Jewish Orthodox environment. Like many East European artists from a similar background, he decided to leave behind the confines of his homeland and emigrate to the art metropolis of Paris in search of both social freedom and artistic emancipation. He lived there as a shy outsider, confiding in only a small group of people including Amedeo Modigliani. Concurrently with such avant-garde movements as Cubism and Surrealism, Soutine developed an autonomous style, one in which a high degree of emotional power is palpable.

Soutine employed traditional genres and referenced venerable exemplars from the history of European art. He always painted directly from nature, yet his energetic brushstrokes led to a world that was disintegrating. The artist created haunting portraits of bellboys and cooks with distorted bodies and crooked faces. His landscapes are full of dizzying perspectives in which hills sway and houses dance. His still lifes are unsparing depictions of animal carcasses that become symbols of pain and death. Soutine’s imagery not only echoed the emotional fragility of his own existence, but also an attitude to life during an era that was being torn apart by wars, social injustices, and conflicting religious and political worldviews. Today, his works remain moving in their expressive addressing of vulnerability and the existential.

During the post-war period, a new generation of artists discovered Soutine’s powerful oeuvre, declaring him a visionary and pioneer of gestural painting. He became a role model for representatives of both Abstract Expressionism and the School of London, but also continues to inspire contemporary figurative and abstract painters.

Following his arrival in Paris in 1913, Soutine lived for almost ten years in extreme poverty and almost exclusively among other migrants from Eastern Europe. At first, he lived in the La Ruche studio complex in Montparnasse, where he encountered such artists as Marc Chagall, Jacques Lipchitz, and Ossip Zadkine, later moving to Cité Falguière. He became friends with the Italian artist Amedeo Modigliani, who introduced him to his art dealer Léopold Zborowski.

At that time, the French art scene was being significantly influenced by immigrant artists, including Pablo Picasso, Max Ernst, Sonia Delaunay, and Piet Mondrian. To distinguish them from the local artists of the “École française” (French School), the term “École de Paris” (School of Paris) became popular for a heterogeneous group comprising foreign artists and cultural protagonists, even though no uniform style was discernable. Over the years, Soutine developed his own expressive visual language. Always using real objects as his point of departure, he devoted himself to the traditional genres of landscape, portrait, and still life.

Only a few works from the period 1913 to 1917 are extant, as Soutine destroyed many of his early works. The earliest surviving paintings include still lifes of meager meals rendered in a sober style, a series of flower arrangements, a small number of portraits, and Paris cityscapes, together with the first landscapes from the South of France.

In 1919, the art dealer Léopold Zborowski sent Soutine to paint in Céret, a legendary settlement in the French Pyrenees close to the Spanish border. Artists such as Henri Matisse and Pablo Picasso had been able to discover their artistic language there, and Soutine also underwent a significant artistic development during three lonely years.

The artist studied his surroundings while developing a passion for en plein air painting, exposing himself to the elements, waiting for hours for the right light, and working until completely exhausted. The paintings from Céret are characterized by a compressing of pictorial space, vivid colors, and violent brushstrokes. The landscapes would seem to be exploding, descending into chaos, in response to the energy the painter brought to the work. Swaying rows of houses, collapsing village squares, and churned up hills create a disturbing effect. The artist destroyed many works from this very productive period while still in Céret as well as during subsequent years.

Between 1923 and 1925, Soutine lived between Paris and Cagnes-sur-Mer on the Mediterranean coast. During the so-called Cagnes period, his color palette became brighter and more luminous, and his forms more hermetic and rounded. The landscapes would appear wider and more accessible thanks to winding roads or steps leading into imagery that remained characterized by instability. The individual pictorial elements seem to have a life of their own, twisting, arching, rising, and falling.

From 1919 to 1928, Soutine became deeply involved with the genre of portrait painting, primarily depicting people he did not know personally. In Céret, he found his models from the neighborhood and the street. His breakthrough came at the age of 29 with the painting Le pâtissier (around 1919), which the American art collector Albert C. Barnes discovered in the winter of 1922/23 and purchased along with 51 other works. The artist, who had been virtually unknown until then, became famous overnight and his financial situation was improved in one fell swoop.

While historically it was only the upper class who had been depicted in the genre of portrait painting, Soutine decided to depict humble people who, like himself, came from the lower social classes. Following his commercial breakthrough, his new lifestyle was reflected in a change in sitters, with more employees from hotels and restaurants making an appearance. He produced, in various series, portraits of waiters and bellboys that testify to his preference for portraying people in work uniforms.

The artist frequently employed the same compositional scheme, placing the models in the center of the painting as half or three-quarter figures so that they dominated the canvas. They were posed standing or sitting on a chair in front of an undefined background, their hands in their laps or on their hips. The bodily proportions run rampant, ears and hands are oversized, and limbs become stretched. While the frequently asymmetrical faces are turned towards the viewer, most of the figures appear rather introverted. The expressive, sometimes caricatural exaggerations highlight the individual character of the people being portrayed.

As part of his training at the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris from 1913 to 1915, but also in later years, Soutine regularly visited the Louvre to study older art, including still lifes by the 17^th century Dutch masters. During his early period, alongside bouquets of flowers, he painted frugal kitchen still lifes. Gradually, however, he dispensed with anything anecdotal, abandoning such props as furniture, bowls, and cutlery. The focus shifted to dead animals: poultry hanging upside down, rabbits, and carcasses of beef.

Soutine produced variations on Jean Siméon Chardin’s (1699–1779) still lifes depicting skate fish or rabbits, and his later Boeuf écorché series testifies to his studying the Slaughtered Ox by Rembrandt (1606–1669), an artist he admired. Since Soutine was only able to work from the real motif, he recreated such arrangements in his studio. Under his brush, the motifs dissolve into pure, violent painting in a virtual echo of the animals in the throes of death.

There are various possible reasons for Soutine’s deep involvement with the subject of food and the motif of slaughtered animals. During his childhood, he lived according to Jewish dietary laws and rituals, witnessing the slaughter of animals in the shtetl. The first half of his life was marked by poverty and hunger. Yet the subject matter remained relevant even after Soutine’s commercial breakthrough; due to a stomach ailment, he was obliged to follow a strict diet and avoid lavish meals.

A preoccupation with exemplars from the history of European art is likewise evident in Soutine’s figure paintings. The models’ poses, sitting frontally and upright on chairs with wide shoulders, employed repeatedly by the artist, are reminiscent of paintings of monarchs such as the portrait of Charles VII by Jean Fouquet (around 1420–1481), which Soutine had seen in the Louvre.

Gustave Courbet (1819–1877) was another of the artists admired and cited by Soutine. The choirboy in Soutine’s painting Le grand enfant de chœur (1925) would seem to have been inspired by the altar boy in the foreground in Courbet’s painting Un enterrement à Ornans (1849–1850). It was Soutine’s first work in a whole series depicting choirboys as full, three-quarter or half figures. Such variations are another example of the serial treatment of a motif and Soutine’s interest in models whose clothing reflects their function.

The robes of the choirboys and the girl in La Communiante may also have fascinated the artist because of the liturgical context and especially the colors. The significance of the color red in his work had already been evident in the early gladioli still lifes and is likewise apparent in the bloody carcasses of beef, as well as in many of the portraits. He engaged extensively with white in all its shades in the series of portraits of pastry cooks. The combination of his two favorite colors, red and white, in the choirboys’ robes results in a particular luminosity. A powerful contrast is created by the dark background which, together with the timid gazes and elongated torsos, generates an ominous tension that recalls the imagery of the painter El Greco (around 1541–1614).

The portraits of the late 1920s and 1930s are pervaded by increasingly passive figures. The faces and gestures become more tranquil and reserved with expressions of resignation and melancholy predominating. The hotel employees are replaced by such domestic staff as chambermaids and cooks. These are the staff of Madeleine and Marcellin Castaing, the couple who were Soutine’s patrons, and on whose country estate in Lèves near Chartres Soutine lived intermittently during the 1930s. Landscapes from Civry, Auxerre, Champigny, and Richelieu also testify to the artist’s sojourns in the countryside during subsequent years.

However, a worsening of his stomach ailment was increasingly affecting the artist in his work. In addition, the occupation of France by Nazi Germany from 1940 onwards and the subsequent introduction of anti-Semitic laws created a life-threatening situation. Soutine was forced to go into hiding and change accommodation frequently. In 1943 he died of a perforation of the stomach that could not be treated in time.

Following World War II, Soutine’s work became increasingly accessible to the general public through exhibitions in Europe and the USA. Largely thanks to a retrospective at the Museum of Modern Art in New York in 1950, a new generation of artists were able to discover Soutine’s painting. Prominent representatives of Abstract Expressionism, the artists’ group CoBrA, and the School of London all recognized Soutine as an inspiring paragon. Willem de Kooning (1904–1997), Jackson Pollock (1912–1956), and especially Francis Bacon (1909–1992) became his most renowned admirers.

He remains today a key figure for both figurative and abstract painters, as evidenced by the film Chaïm Soutine. A World in Flux, which was produced for the exhibition. In it, seven contemporary artists talk about their fascination with Soutine’s work and his personal attributes. The participating artists are Leidy Churchman, Thomas Hirschhorn, Chantal Joffe, Imran Qureshi, Dana Schutz, Amy Sillman, and Emma Talbot. Watch the film in the basement of the museum (till November 3, 2024) or in our digital guide.

1893
Chaïm Soutine is born in Smilovitchi near Minsk, now part of Belarus, as the 10^th of 11 children. Smilovitchi is a shtetl with a predominantly Jewish population. Soutine grows up in poverty in a strongly religious environment and speaks Yiddish as his mother tongue. Soutines father is a repairing tailor and wishes his son to become a craftsman as well. Soutine, however, resolves to dedicate his life to painting.

1903–1912
Soutine travels to Minsk to take drawing classes. In 1910, he draws a portrait of an Orthodox Jewish man, thereby violating Judaism’s prohibition on images. Soutine is gravely assaulted by the man’s sons. For this, his parents receive monetary damages, which finance their son’s education at the art school in Vilnius.

1913
Soutine makes the multiple-day train journey from Vilnius to Paris, at that time Europe’s capital of art. He lives in the studio community La Ruche in Montparnasse.
In the summer, he enrolls at the École des Beaux-Arts de Paris. Soutine is impressed by the city, and especially by the Louvre’s art collection. His initial period in Paris is characterised by hunger, illness and deprivation.

1914–1915
On 4 August 1914, the First World War breaks out. As an immigrant, Soutine is not called up to serve. He volunteers, but, due to a stomach ailment, is rejected.
Soutine moves to the artists’ residence of Cité Falguière and strikes up a close friendship with Italian artist Amedeo Modigliani (1884–1920), who also grew up in a Jewish family.

1916–1918
Soutine mainly paints still lifes, only a few of which have survived. Modigliani persuades his art dealer, Léopold Zborowski, to sign a contract with Soutine. In exchange for the exclusive rights to his works, Soutine receives a modest daily allowance.
In March 1918, German troops bombard Paris. At the urging of Zborowski, Soutine and Modigliani travel south to Vence and Cagnes-sur-Mer at the Côte d’Azur.

1919
Zborowski sends Soutine to Céret, a small town in the Pyrenees. He paints numerous landscapes and portraits of the town’s inhabitants, including Le Pâtissier, with which he was to achieve his breakthrough.

1920
In January in the south of France, Soutine is shocked to learn of Modigliani’s death.
During a visit from Zborowski, Soutine sets fire to several paintings he no longer likes. Zborowski manages to save some of them.

1922
At the end of 1922, Soutine returns to Paris with around 20 works. He destroys many of them in subsequent years.
American art collector Albert C. Barnes visits Paris in the winter of 1922/1923 in search of works for a collection he wants to establish in Philadelphia. He is thrilled with Le Pâtissier and buys this and 51 other works by Soutine at a price of 15-30 dollars apiece. News of the unusual success story spreads quickly throughout Paris.

1923
In January, French art dealer Paul Guillaume publishes the first article about Soutine in the journal Les Arts à Paris.
Barnes organises an exhibition of Soutine’s work at Guillaume’s gallery and subsequently shows his acquisitions at an exhibition of European art in Philadelphia.
Soutine spends much of the next two years in Cagnes in the south of France. Here, he creates further portraits of pastry chefs and numerous landscapes. In a letter to Zborowski that same year, he writes that he is in a poor state of mind and that he is lonely in Cagnes. However, he only returns to Paris two years later.

1924
Barnes’s purchases increase Soutine’s value in the art market, giving him both financial independence and artistic recognition.
He begins his series of still lifes with stingrays.

1925
Soutine moves into his own apartment near Rue du Saint-Gothard, where his large studio is located. From this time on he moves lodgings several times a year.
Soutine has a daughter, Aimée, with Déborah Melnik, whom he knows from his art studies in Vilnius. However, he never acknowledges the daughter as his.
He travels to Amsterdam to study Rembrandt’s works at the Rijksmuseum. He begins his series of choirboys, bell boys and slaughtered oxen.

1926
Polish-born art critic Waldemar George writes about Soutine in the journal L’Amour de l’art. His fame grows and his works now fetch high prices at auction.
Due to his continuing stomach problems, Soutine regularly visits a spa in Châtel-Guyon in Auvergne between 1926 and 1928. Here, he meets the interior designer Madeleine Castaing and her art critic husband Marcellin. They develop a close friendship, and Soutine paints her portrait.

1927
Soutine’s first solo exhibition takes place at Galerie Henri Bing in Paris. He feels uneasy around people and does not attend the opening.
Thanks to Barnes, his work is shown in group exhibitions in New York and other cities in the United States.

1928–1929
Waldemar George publishes the first monograph on Soutine in the series Artistes juifs at Editions Le Triangle in Paris in 1928. The year after, the art historian Èlie Faure’s monograph comes out. 
In 1929, Soutine paints the series L’Arbre de Vence.

1930–1932
The global economic crisis weakens the Parisian art market. Zborowski is no longer able to represent Soutine. The Castaings become Soutine’s patrons. Up until the outbreak of the Second World War in 1939, he often stays with them in Lèves in the Centre-Val de Loire region.
Léopold Zborowski dies in 1932. His wife, Anna, sells his entire collection.

1935
The first comprehensive exhibition of Soutine’s work in the United States takes place at the Art Club of Chicago.
In Paris, 10 of his works are shown in the exhibition Peintres instinctifs. Naissance de l’expressionnisme.
Sullivan Gallery and Valentine Gallery, who also represents Piet Mondrian, organise solo exhibitions by Soutine in New York.

1937
At the artists’ hangout Café du Dôme in Montparnasse, Soutine meets German-Jewish refugee Gerda Groth, née Michaelis. She takes him in and he calls her Mademoiselle Garde. Together they move into Villa Seurat in the 14^th arrondissement.
In London, Leicester Gallery shows a retrospective exhibition of Soutine’s work. Petit Palais in Paris shows 12 of his works in the exhibition Les Maîtres de l’art indépendant.
Severe stomach pains prevent Soutine from working.

1939
When the Second World War breaks out, Soutine is living with Gerda Groth in the village of Civry in the Bourgogne-Franche-Comté region. Both are registered as refugees and are forbidden to leave the town. Upon being granted a special medical certificate, Soutine is able to travel to Paris.

1940
During the summer, German troops occupy Paris. Anti-Jewish restrictions and violent attacks become increasingly common. In May, the German army transports Gerda Groth to the Gurs internment camp in the Pyrenees, where she is kept for three months. Soutine never sees her again.
In Paris, Soutine meets his future partner, the painter Marie-Berthe Aurenche (1905–1960).

1941
Soutine stays in Paris illegally but is afraid to leave the capital for fear that he will not be able to get the milk he needs for his diet in the free zone. He is forced to wear the Star of David.
Soutine and Aurenche manage to obtain forged papers to take refuge in Champigny, near Chinon in the Centre-Val de Loire region.

1943
Soutine’s health deteriorates drastically. After a risky three-day journey, he is transferred to a hospital in Paris. Soutine undergoes emergency surgery for a perforated stomach ulcer, but dies two days later on 9 August.
Fellow artists Pablo Picasso (1881–1973) and Jean Cocteau (1889–1963) along with the poet Max Jacob (1876–1944) are among those who attend Soutine’s funeral at Montparnasse cemetery on 11 August 1943. 

Public guided tour in English
Sunday, 11:30: 10.11.2024

Chaïm Soutine. Against the Current
Kunstmuseum Bern
16.8.–1.12.2024

Curator: Anne-Christine Strobel

An exhibition of the Kunstmuseum Bern in collaboration with the Kunstsammlung Nordrhein-Westfalen in Düsseldorf and the Louisiana Museum of Modern Art, Humlebæk

Exhibition catalogue: Chaïm Soutine. Gegen den Strom, edited by Susanne Gaensheimer and Susanne Meyer-Büser, Hatje Cantz, Berlin 2023. With contributions from Claire Bernardi, Marta Dziewańska, Susanne Meyer-Büser, Sophie Krebs, Pascale Samuel and Catherine Frèrejean 

Audio guide:
Text: Susanne Meyer-Büser, Kunstsammlung Nordrhein-Westfalen, Düsseldorf
Speaker German & Einfache Sprache: André Kaczmarczyk
Realization: tonwelt GmbH

Digital Guide:
Implementation: NETNODE AG
Project: Martin Stadelmann, Cédric Zubler

With the support of:

Media partner:

Kunstmuseum Bern
Hodlerstrasse 8–12, 3011 Bern
+41 31 328 09 44
info@kunstmuseumbern.ch
kunstmuseumbern.ch/ChaimSoutine

Instagram
Facebook
Youtube