cp soutine ang validé - Pinacothèque de Paris

This exhibition will show a brilliant artist, an inquisitor of souls and minds, through
approximately 80 paintings, most of which are totally re-discovered works, exhibited
for the very first time. Many canvases were restored for this occasion. The ensemble
comes from the most important private collections as well as from international
museums: French, Japanese, Swiss and American.
Through his use of portraiture, Soutine examined the personalities of his chosen
sitters. He showed up their quintessential characteristics, and drew out of each of
them what no other artist had perceived. He was quite rightly described as an
Expressionist, and was the only one to have represented that movement in France,
whereas it was the very basis of all the developing movements, be it in Germany and
in Austria at the same period. A true visionary, he transcended reality to transform it
into an imaginary representation about a century ahead of his time. On the cusp of
several movements still in their infancy, he based his art on the most classical and
the most illustrious of his fore-runners (Rembrandt, Courbet, Corot, Cézanne….) to
become the major precursor of the greatest contemporary artists from Pollock to De
Kooning. He was a reference for all of the Cobra movement, as well as for Bacon,
whose pictorial powerfulness descends directly from Soutine.
Today the Pinacothèque de Paris wants to throw a new light on the works by this
essential artist from the start of the 20 th century, thanks to loans shown for the first
and, quite probably, the last time.
The very well documented catalogue, will provide us with a closer look at all of the
essential aspects that make up Soutine’s powerfulness and uniqueness: his links to
Judaism, his critical heritage, his triangular relationship with Albert Barnes and Paul
Guillaume which led him to fame and fortune, his artistic characteristics, as well as
his cultural links with the past and the future, his passion for series like that of Monet,
and his powers of anticipation.
These many features will totally renew the look cast upon Chaim Soutine’s body of
work that Jacqueline Munck, Sophie Krebs, Claudine Gramont and Marc Restellini
aim to emphasize.