chaim soutine // biography (1893-1943) / gallery

//Chaïm Soutine//

Known as: Belarrusian Expressionist painter

Born: 1893, Smilavichi, Russian Empire (now Belarus)

Date of death: August 9, 1943, Paris , France (perforated ulcer)

Buried: Cimetière du Montparnasse, Paris

Chaim Soutine was born in a Jewish ghetto. He managed to leave Minsk and get to Paris in 1913 when he was 20. He bevame associated with the foreign-born Jewish artists Amedeo Modigliani, Marc Chagall and Jules Pascin.

He was much influenced by Expressionism. His best pictures are perhaps his slaughterhouse pieces.

He died in 1943, in wartime France, where he was forced to hide in the countryside to elude Nazi occupiers.

The United States probaly has the biggest and best examples of his work, owing largely to Dr Barnes, who bought 100 in 1923. These pictures are now in Merion, Pa. You can also find his work in New Yor (M of MA) and Washington NG, Phillips).

//Gallery//