Modigliani portrait painting of Chaim Soutine
The 11th child of a Russian Jewish tailor, Chaim Soutine (1894–1943) was rescued from poverty and abuse by a rabbi who recognized his talent and sent him to art school—first in Minsk, then in Vilna. Soutine arrived in Paris at the age of 17 in 1911–1912 and met Modigliani in Montparnasse in about 1914. They developed a close friendship, and Modigliani painted Soutine's portrait several times. Soutine's unruly, spontaneous manner of painting was alien to his Italian friend, who, to describe his own state of drunkenness, once quipped, "Everything dances around me as in a landscape by Soutine." The elegant Modigliani felt protective of the uncouth Soutine, 10 years his junior. In 1916 Modigliani introduced his friend to his dealer, Leopold Zborowski, and urged him to handle Soutine's work, which he began to do. Shortly before Modigliani died, he told Zborowski, "Don't worry, I'm leaving you Soutine." While many of Modigliani's portraits are either stylized and impersonal—with eyes often left blank—or almost caricatural, this painting seems to be both particular and sympathetic. Soutine sits with tumbling hair and ill-matched clothes, his hands placed awkwardly in his lap, his nose spreading across his face as he stares out of the frame. The half-closed eyes, one slightly higher than the other, might suggest Soutine's despair and hopelessness, attitudes with which Modigliani could identify as a poor artist in Paris. Modigliani's treatment of Soutine may also reflect the special place that Soutine had won in the older artist's affections - National Gallery of Art.
Size: 2785px × 2785px
Location: Paris
Photo credit: © steeve-x-art / Alamy / Afripics
License: Royalty Free
Model Released: No
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