Soutine, De Kooning: Conversations in Paint

Soutine, Chaim and Willem De Kooning

ISBN 10: 1911300881 / ISBN 13: 9781911300885

Published by The Barnes Foundation, Philadelphia, 2021

About this Item

Color-illustrated boards with blue-green spine with black and white lettering; ix, 166 pages; illustrations (chiefly color). This book accompanies an exhibition organized by the Barnes Foundation, and the Musées d'Orsay et de l'Orangerie, Paris, dedicated to the affinities between the work of Chaim Soutine and Willem de Kooning. It was Dr. Albert Barnes who had made Soutine's career by buying the bulk of the unknown artist's available work in Paris in 1923. The exhibition and accompanying publication will show how the work of Soutine had a decisive influence on the development of de Kooning's art, especially following the posthumous Soutine retrospective held at The Museum of Modern Art in 1950. -- WorldCat. Good+ (Boards, bookblock and interior are in excellent condition; there is some penciled marginalia throughout.).

Seller Inventory # 207439

Bibliographic Details

• Title: Soutine, De Kooning: Conversations in Paint
• Publisher: The Barnes Foundation, Philadelphia
• Publication Date: 2021
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1911300881
• ISBN 13: 9781911300885
• Binding: Hardcover
• Seller catalogs:
  • European Artists

About this title

Synopsis

“I’ve always been crazy about Soutine—all of his paintings,” said Willem de Kooning in 1977, speaking about Lithuanian artist Chaim Soutine (1893–1943). Of all the abstract expressionists, de Kooning was the only one who continued to praise Soutine throughout his career and to credit him with an influence on his work. But how much was de Kooning’s approach impacted by Soutine? 

Soutine / de Kooning’s dramatic juxtaposition of the two artists reveals Soutine’s decisive influence on the development of de Kooning’s art. The expressive force of Soutine’s painting, coupled with his image as an “accursed” artist struggling with the vicissitudes and excesses of bohemian life in Paris during the interwar years, held a powerful sway over a new generation of postwar painters in the United States—it was during these years that de Kooning matured his own personal form of expressionism. 

This lavishly illustrated book traces the development of Soutine’s influence, paying particular attention to the posthumous retrospective of Soutine’s work that was held at the Museum of Modern Art in 1950.

About the Authors

Simonetta Fraquelli is an independent curator specializing in early twentieth-century art. She worked for more than twenty years at the Royal Academy of Arts in London before becoming a freelance curator in 2006.

Claire Bernardi is curator at the Musée d’Orsay in Paris.