Chaim Soutine: Genius, Obsession, and a Dramatic Life in Art

A revelatory biography of the Jewish expressionist painter that corrects the myths surrounding his work and proves his importance to the contemporary art world

“It’s not often that an art history book comes along so sharply perceptive about its subject and so grippingly written that reading it is akin to the thrilling experience of looking at the paintings themselves. This is what Celeste Marcus has achieved in her transformative account of Chaim Soutine.”—Simon Schama, author of The Story of the Jews

Every major modern art museum in the world has Chaim Soutine in its collection. Yet, a full biographical study of the artist and his work does not exist. His paintings, which are shocking, grotesque, difficult, touching, and brilliant, were revered but misunderstood by his contemporaries who mistook him for an expressionist.

In Chaim Soutine, Celeste Marcus offers a compelling history of the artist, taking us from his early days in eastern Europe to his life in Paris among other artists such as Chagall and Modigliani, to his death in France during the German invasion. Marcus highlights how his Jewish identity dictated his dark fate even while he personally abandoned his heritage, and she reveals the conditions in which he created his most intriguing paintings. What emerges is a thorough examination of an artist who defied the conventional standards of beauty in the 1920s and 1930s and an immersive look into the expressionist movement that flourished during the interwar period and influenced the most popular artists of today.

Celeste Marcus is the managing editor of Liberties: A Journal of Culture and Politics, which she helped to found. She lives in Washington, DC.