Chaim Soutine

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Chaim Soutine – a Russian classical painter 

A Russian-born french Soutine painter Chaim born in 1893, is a highly unique style characterized by the use of thick impasto, ruffled brushwork, and the presence of disturbing psychological content, solely related to 20th-century expressionism. Soutine's harsh and heart-wrenching portrayals of beef carcasses plucked fowl, fish, and game create a parallel between the animal and human and between beauty and pain. His still-life paintings, produced for thirty years, express his painterly mastery and personal passion with visceral power.

In between the poverty and difficulty 

He was born to a Jewish family, and his father was a poor tailor in Belorussia. He attended the school of fine arts in Vilna because of a kind doctor who helped him. Although while living in Paris and surrounded by a large group of Jewish immigrants, including Modigliani, Chagall, and Jacques Lipchitz, Soutine constantly struggled with ill-health and poverty. Sometimes he used to stand at the counter in cafes hoping that someone would take pity and buy him a meal. Unfortunately, no one helped him. The artist was private about viewings of his work as he was not confident about it. His fortunes changed in 1923 when he met the American collector Dr. Albert C Barnes. Barnes visited Soutine's studio and purchased 100 of his paintings. The relationship continued for the next few years, making it routine to be stable financially. His paints show the harshness of his life; generally, his paints are very expressive with anger, humor, and mockery. He died on August 9th, 1943, ay Paris.

Important artworks

  • Still, life with herrings(1916) – Soutine includes food as an asset in almost all paintings. Food plays an important role in religious rituals and his life because of the lack of food.
  • Self-portrait (1918) is a self-portrait of Soutine where he portrays himself in an unfavorable light as if the artist is showing his flaws. 
  • Current landscape(1920)- a typically modern and Expressionist mode of representation.