Chaïm Soutine

Exhibited by David Lévy & Associés

Material Oil on canvas

Dimensions 60 × 73 cm

Status Vetted

About the Work

Originally from Belarus, Soutine was one of the most important members of the School of Paris. Upon his arrival to Paris in 1913, he moved into La Ruche and then to the studio of the sculptor Mietschaninoff in the Cité Falguière, where he met Lipchitz, who introduced him to Modigliani. Soutine first tasted success at the beginning of the 1920s, when he participated in several exhibitions and some of his pieces were bought by collectors such as Léon Zamaton and Émile Lejeune. But it was above all Dr. Barnes who assured his financial security when the doctor and collector from Philadelphia bought more than 50 of his canvases through Paul Guillaume and Zborowski in 1922.

The following year, Paul Guillaume organized an exhibition of a selection of the works that Dr. Barnes had acquired, including pieces by Soutine, Van Gogh, Picasso, Matisse, and Daumier, and published the first article dedicated to Soutine in his journal Les Arts à Paris. Zborowski sent him, once more, to Cagnes, a place that Soutine grew to detest: « Je voudrais quitter Cagnes, ce paysage que je ne peux supporter » ("I want to leave Cagnes, a landscape I can't stand"), he wrote to his dealer (cited by Jean Leymarie and Marcellin Castaing in Soutine, Paris, Bibliothèque des arts, 1963, p. 22).

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Provenance

Dr. Jacques Soubies Collection, Troyes
Hotel Drouot, Paris, Auction Tableaux Modernes, Ader and de Cagny, 13 December 1940, lot 97 (repr. p. 31 planche VII)
Dr. Angele Pierre Merat, Troyes
Private Collection, Paris, by descent, circa 1989
Private Collection, Paris