Chaim Soutine
Chaim Soutine ( Russian Хаим Соломонович Сутин Chaim Solomonowitsch Sutin ; * 1893 in Smilawitschy , Russian Empire ; † August 9, 1943 in Paris ) was a French painter of Belarusian - Jewish origin.
life and work
childhood
Chaim Soutine was born in Smilawitschy in 1893, a Belarusian shtetl near Minsk with about 400 inhabitants. He was the tenth of eleven children of a poor Jewish tailor. Smilawitschy consisted of a collection of dilapidated wooden houses. His mother had aged early, always worried and silent, and was not particularly loving to her numerous offspring.
Even in his early years, Soutine was fond of drawing, making sketches on every scrap of paper available or painting the walls with charcoal. At his father's request, he was to become a cobbler or tailor. As in Judaism the displaying of people is forbidden, the young Soutine from his strictly religious parents were often punished for his drawings. As his acquaintances later recalled, he always expressed himself with bitterness about his childhood.
education
In 1907 Soutine emigrated to Minsk with his friend Michel Kikoïne , "the first step into a bigger world". There he worked as an apprentice photographer and attended Jakov Kruger's painting school. With Michel Kikoïne he went to Vilnius in 1909 , also in the hope of being able to study at the Vilnius Art Academy . A first application was unsuccessful, but the second attempt he was accepted by the art academy for a three-year course, which he completed in 1913. During this time he was able to save enough money for a train ticket to France and arrived in Paris in July 1913, the city he had dreamed of.
Paris time
The painter Pinchas Krémègne , with whom Soutine had attended the art academy in Vilnius, already lived in “ La Ruche ”, a dilapidated building in the 15th arrondissement consisting of a large number of artist studios . Krémègne introduced Soutine to the studios where Alexander Archipenko , Marc Chagall , Moise Kisling , Fernand Léger , Henri Laurens , Amedeo Modigliani and Ossip Zadkine lived and worked for a time. Modigliani would later become a close friend and supporter of Soutines, who introduced him to his patron and art dealer Leopold Zborowski .
For a few months Soutine attended the Paris State University of Fine Arts . It was directed by Fernand Cormon , who had taught van Gogh and Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec in the 1880s . Soutine found models in El Greco , Velazquez and Rembrandt . However, he was most strongly influenced by Paul Cézanne , Vincent van Gogh and Pierre Bonnard . Another important formal influence can be seen in various pictures that were taken in early 1918. Bonnard showed him how to use the paint while still "wet" and in a densely structured painting style. In 1918 he left Paris for the first time since arriving in France and drove with Modigliani to Cagnes-sur-Mer in southern France. During these years Soutine lived in extreme material need and often had to starve, which resulted in a chronic stomach disease.
Céret time
In 1919 he visited Céret in the Languedoc-Roussillon region near the French Pyrenees and the Spanish border, where he moved for about three years. Between 1919 and 1922 he created around 200 pictures. In Céret, Soutine mainly painted landscapes , but some portraits occupy a special place in his oeuvre. Soutine's stylistic development in Céret is most evident in his landscapes. The famous purchase of Soutines paintings in 1923 by the American doctor and art collector Albert C. Barnes and further acquisitions by other collectors the following year created a demand for his pictures. With that, Soutine's financial worries ended. In 1923 he met Madeleine and Marcelin Castaing, they became Soutines patrons .
From 1923 to 1925 he spent his time alternately in Cagnes or neighboring villages and in Paris. During these years he met Deborah Melnik, a Jew whom he knew from Vilna. When she gave birth to a daughter, Soutine denied paternity and left mother and child. From 1925 to 1929 Soutine lived mostly in Paris. His pictures from this period are mostly still lifes ; dead pheasants, turkeys, rabbits and ox carcasses. Zborowski died in 1932.
The first solo exhibition of his pictures took place in 1927 in the Paris gallery " Bing ".
Last years
From 1930 to 1935 Soutine spent the summer months near Chartres in the country castle of the Castaing family, his patrons . In 1935 his works were exhibited in the USA at the Chicago Arts Club , followed by solo exhibitions in New York City (“Valentine”, 1936 and 1938; “Carstairs”, 1940), London (“Leicester”, 1937) and Washington (“Philips” , 1943). In 1937 he met Gerda Groth, a German emigrant from National Socialist Germany , whom he nicknamed "Mile Garde". After the outbreak of hostilities, it was, by the French on May 15, 1940 along with other Germans who lived in Paris in the internment camp Gurs internment camp in the Pyrenees deported . Under the German occupation from July 1940, Soutine, as a registered Jew, was forced to seek refuge in small towns outside Paris. In November Soutine met Marie-Berthe Aurenche , Max Ernst's former wife , who became his companion.
At the beginning of August 1943 Soutine suffered a severe gastric perforation and was secretly taken to a Paris hospital, where he died on August 9, 1943 during the operation. On August 11th he was buried in the Montparnasse Cemetery. Among the few mourners were Pablo Picasso , Max Jacob and Jean Cocteau .
International appreciation
In 1964 his works were shown in the painting department at documenta III in Kassel . In the art market his works are now highly valued. Soutine's painting Le Bœuf (1923) fetched around 28.2 million US dollars at Christie's auction house in 2015 .
From March 31 to May 16, 2009 the Galerie Thomas , Munich, presented the exhibition Chaim Soutine: The Passion of Painting .
On January 25, 2013, a French special stamp with Soutines landscape as a motif was issued.
literature
- Klaus H. Carl: Soutine . Parkstone International, New York 2015, ISBN 978-1-78525-042-2 .
- Andrée Collié: Memories of Chaïm Soutine - 1944. Translated from the French by Elisabeth Edl. Piet Meyer Verlag, Basel 2008, ISBN 978-3-905799-03-3 .
- Tatjana Kuschtewskaja : Chaim Soutine and Madeleine Castaing . In: Dies .: Secrets of beautiful women. Famous artists and their models . Grupello Verlag, Düsseldorf 2018, ISBN 978-3-89978-301-8 , pp. 154-164.
- Maurice Tuchman, Esti Dunow, Klaus Perls : Soutine. Catalog raisonné. Trilingual (French / English / German). Taschen, Berlin 2001.
- Fiction
- Ralph Dutli : Soutine's last trip. Novel. Wallstein, Göttingen 2013.
DVD
- Chaïm Soutine. Documentary, text by Valérie Firla and Murielle Levy, directed by Valérie Firla, 52 minutes. Productions du Golem , ed. from the Réunion des musées nationaux , 2008.
Web links
- Literature by and about Chaim Soutine in the catalog of the German National Library
- Materials by and about Chaim Soutine in the documenta archive
- Site of the Ceret Museum (French)
- Pronunciation of the name Chaim Soutine on Forvo.com
Individual evidence
- ^ Klaus H. Carl: Soutine . Parkstone International, New York 2015, p. 12.
- ↑ a b Klaus H. Carl: Soutine . Parkstone International, New York 2015, p. 189.
- ^ Klaus H. Carl: Soutine . Parkstone International, New York 2015, p. 190.
- ^ Klaus H. Carl: Soutine . Parkstone International, New York 2015, p. 187.
- ^ Page of the auction house , accessed on May 12, 2015
- ↑ Timbre de 2013. www.phil-ouest.com, accessed on October 23, 2014 (French).
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Soutine, Chaim |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | Belarusian painter |
| DATE OF BIRTH | 1893 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Smilavichy , Belarus |
| DATE OF DEATH | August 9, 1943 |
| Place of death | Paris |