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Coverbild Chaïm Soutine
The back cover of an art book titled Against the Current, lying at an angle on a white surface. The cover features a large, grainy, black-and-white portrait of artist Chaïm Soutine. The title is printed in a large, white, sans-serif font over the image. A descriptive paragraph, publisher logos, and a barcode are visible at the bottom.
An angled shot of a hardcover art book titled Chaim Soutine against a white background. The cover features an expressionist portrait of a seated woman with thick, textured brushstrokes in warm red, orange, and yellow tones.
An open book showing a two-page spread. The left page has a full-bleed, black-and-white photograph of men in early 20th-century attire standing on a cobblestone street in front of a shop with Hebrew writing on the window. The right page has the title Soutine, Between Two Worlds by Pascale Samuel, followed by introductory text.
An open art book displaying a two-page spread with two expressionist paintings by Chaïm Soutine. Both paintings, titled The Rayfish and Still Life with Rayfish, depict hanging fish carcasses in a visceral style with thick, colorful brushstrokes against dark backgrounds.
An open art book displays a two-page spread against a white background. On the left is an expressionist portrait of a man in a blue jacket. On the right is a similar-style portrait of a woman in a vibrant red dress and a dark hat.
An open book showing two pages against a white background. The left page is titled Lenders to the Exhibition and lists numerous museums, galleries, and collections. The right page is the table of contents for a book about the artist Chaïm Soutine, with chapter titles including Foreword, Introduction, Biography, and Appendix.
A page from an art book about Chaïm Soutine. On the right, the title reads, Introduction, Exciting, Moving, Poignant— The Paintings of Chaïm Soutine, above several paragraphs of text. On the left is Soutine's expressionistic painting, Hill at Céret, a turbulent landscape with thick, swirling brushstrokes, positioned above a descriptive quote by Thomas B. Hess.
A page from an art book showing the painting Still Life with Herrings. The expressionist artwork features an overhead view of a dark table with an orange oval platter holding three whole fish. A white chef's hat is positioned above the platter, and two silver forks flank the fish, poised to eat.
A side-by-side comparison of two expressionist oil paintings from 1919. On the left, a still life features a dead pheasant hanging over a table with a platter and fruit. On the right, a smaller painting shows drooping red gladiolas in a vase against a dark background.
An art book page showing Chaïm Soutine's 1920 expressionist portrait, Village Idiot. A young man with a mournful expression and distorted facial features sits in a chair against a textured, deep red background. He wears a dark blue smock with a large, white collar, and his disproportionately large hands rest on his lap. The painting is rendered with thick, energetic brushstrokes.
A page from a book displaying two expressionist portraits of chefs by Chaïm Soutine. On the left is Pastry Chef, circa 1923, featuring a man in a white uniform and tall hat against a swirling green background. On the right is Cook of Cagnes, circa 1924, a similar subject painted with looser, more fragmented brushstrokes.
A page from a catalog displaying two expressionist oil paintings from circa 1923-24. On the left is the horizontal landscape Stairway at Cagnes, and on the right is the vertical The Uphill Road in Cagnes. Both paintings depict swirling, terracotta-colored paths winding through vibrant green trees and buildings under a blue sky, characterized by thick, energetic brushwork. Text captions are visible below.
A page from an art book displaying two expressionist oil paintings from circa 1924. On the left, The Communicant shows a young girl in a white dress, veil, and gloves. On the right, Woman in a Blue Dress depicts a seated woman in a dark gown with her hands folded.
A two-page spread from an art book featuring three still life oil paintings of dead pheasants. The paintings are in an expressionist style with thick, gestural brushstrokes and a dark color palette. The left page shows two smaller paintings, while the right page displays a larger painting. All three depict the birds lying on white cloths. Below the main image on the right, there are captions detailing the artworks.
A two-page spread from an art book. On the right is Chaïm Soutine's expressionist painting, Bellboy, from 1925. It shows a young man in a bright red uniform, hands on his hips. His pale face is distorted and elongated, with a weary, melancholy expression. The background is dark and roughly painted. The left page is mostly blank, with a caption for the painting at the bottom.
A two-page spread from an art book. The left page displays an expressive oil painting of a large, dark, gnarled tree in front of a building. The right page displays a smaller, horizontal oil painting of a woman with dark hair, dressed in white, lying on her front while reading a book. Each painting has a text caption below it with details about the artwork.
A two-page spread from a book detailing the biography of artist Chaïm Soutine. On the left page is a large, grainy, black-and-white photo of Soutine with a distorted, double-exposed face. The right page features the text of his biography and a small inset portrait of his friend, Michel Kikoïne, as an art student.
Chaïm Soutine
Against the Current
€ 40.00
VAT included. Shipping costs will be calculated at checkout
Edited by: Susanne Gaensheimer, Susanne Meyer-Büser
Graphic Design: Mathias Beyer
Texts by: Claire Bernardi, Marta Dziewanska, Susanne Meyer-Büser, Sophie Krebs, Pascale Samuel, Catherine Frèrejean
English
August 2023, 176 Pages
Hardcover
226mm x 282mm
ISBN: 978-3-7757-5541-2

HATJE CANTZ VERLAG
Mommsenstr. 27
10629 Berlin
Germany
E-Mail: contact@hatjecantz.de


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| An insatiable Hunger for Life
Clenched, raw and pressingly urgent: Chaïm Soutine's vivid paintings are testimonies to a sense of human vulnerability and an existence on the margins of society. Intensely colored, his meaty impasto portraits are thrown onto the canvas with broad brushstrokes, while his agitated, frenetic landscapes and paintings of slaughtered animals are expressions of an intense hunger for life and, at the same time, a deep alienation in an unsteady world that offers no support. Despite the recognition his work received, Soutine remained an outsider throughout his life, a stranger to the social manners of his adopted home in France. This catalogue focuses on the early masterpieces and series he created between 1919 and 1925: Under the overarching theme of emigration and uprooting, the contributions reveal the traces of Soutine's Jewish origins in his work, illuminating the significance of his motifs from the fringes of society as well as of blood and animal carcasses as metaphors; and show the influences of Soutine's art up to the present day.

This book is also available in German.

CHAÏM SOUTINE (1893 - 1943) grew up in a shtetl near Minsk - a youth marked by poverty, religious rigor and social exclusion. In 1913 he arrived in Paris and moved into the artist residence "La Ruche" (the "Beehive"), working alongside artists such as Chagall and Modigliani. Fleeing the Nazis, he died in 1943, but the international attention his work had received since the 1920s continued to have great influence on post-war art, inspiring Abstract Expressionism, new figurative painting as well as contemporary artists.
EXHIBITIONS
Kunstsammlung Nordrhein-Westfalen, K20, Düsseldorf
September 2, 2023 - January 14, 2024
Louisiana Museum of Modern Art, Copenhagen
February 10 - June 16, 2024
Kunstmuseum Bern
August 16 - December 1,2024
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