Chaim Soutine : An Expressionist in Paris

ABOUT SOUTINE: Typically classified as a French Expressionist, the Belarusian-Jewish painter Chaim Soutine (1894-1943) created his major works between the two World Wars as part of the School of Paris. A "painter's painter," Soutine worked with unreserved gesture and emotion, using exuberant colour, thickly applied paint, and sweeping brushwork.

ABOUT THIS BOOK: Widely acclaimed, this is a comprehensive and ground-breaking book that rediscovers this important artist, providing an overview of his life, work and aesthetic influence, as well as his critical reception. Essays assess Soutine's art from new vantage points, including the changing critical reception of his work in Paris between the wars, as well as in the US and France in the aftermath of World War II. The essays also examine the influence of Soutine's Jewish and French immigrant background on his work and reception, and introduce us to his important patrons and major collectors. These included Albert Barnes, the famous Philadelphia collector, who discovered Soutine's work in 1922-23 and purchased 52 of his paintings.

The book features presentations and information never published before, including a photo-essay composed of rare photographs of the artist, newly discovered correspondence between Soutine and the French art historian Elie Faure, and the first radiographic analysis of the artist's work, which brings to light new evidence about Soutine's use of materials and his process of painting.

BOOK DETAILS: Hardback, cloth over boards, released with dustjacket. Sewn binding. 207 pp; 3 pounds. 32 full-page color illustrations, 84 b&w illustrations, and a photo essay. 9 essays. Catalogue, Appendix, Chronology, Select Bibliography.

Long neglected in America, the Lithuanian-born artist Chaim Soutine (1893-1943) was the subject of a recent exhibition at the Jewish Museum in New York, continuing on to Los Angeles and Cincinnati. This deeply moving catalog reexamines a remarkable artist who left an impoverished shtetl at the age of 20 to settle in Paris. There he became associated with the foreign-born Jewish artists Chagall, Modigliani, and Pascin and developed a unique style of expressionism. His works are characterized by turbulent landscapes, sorrowful portraits, and gruesome studies of dead animals and raw meat painted with furious brushstrokes. The controversial painter despised letter writing, did not create preparatory sketches, and destroyed many of his works. But the stimulating essays by co-curators Kleeblatt and Silver, among others, along with 32 color plates, rare photographs, and letters create greater understanding and compassion. An important acquisition for Jewish studies, art history, and large general collections.?Joan Levin, MLS, Chicago
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