Chaïm Soutine

Private Collection, New York (and sold: Sotheby's, Paris, December 8, 2010, lot 34)
Acquired at the above sale by the present owner

This work is in very good condition. Canvas is strip lined. Surface retains a rich impasto. The work may benefit from a light cleaning. There is a web of thin vertical craquleure throughout, most of which is stable. Under UV light there appears to be minor inpainting at extreme lower right corner and in a few places around the extreme perimeter to address prior frame abrasion. The varnish layer is somewhat difficult to read through but no significant restorations are apparent.
In response to your inquiry, we are pleased to provide you with a general report of the condition of the property described above. Since we are not professional conservators or restorers, we urge you to consult with a restorer or conservator of your choice who will be better able to provide a detailed, professional report. Prospective buyers should inspect each lot to satisfy themselves as to condition and must understand that any statement made by Sotheby's is merely a subjective qualified opinion.
NOTWITHSTANDING THIS REPORT OR ANY DISCUSSIONS CONCERNING CONDITION OF A LOT, ALL LOTS ARE OFFERED AND SOLD "AS IS" IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE CONDITIONS OF SALE PRINTED IN THE CATALOGUE.

Painted circa 1918-19, this view of the Parisian suburbs is one of the earliest known landscapes by Soutine and already bears the hallmarks of the vigorous, passionate style that would seal the artist's reputation. Arriving in Paris in 1913, Soutine left La Ruche and moved to the Cité Falguière where he shared a studio with Modigliani. In addition to painting several series of portraits and still lives, the artist expressed increasing interest in landscape painting at this time. Thus he began to depict views of Clamart—where he visited his married friend Kikoïne—including this red-roofed house from 1918-19. The beauty of the neighboring countryside afforded him the opportunity to develop a powerful naturalism in which organic motifs, in particular trees, play an essential role. Though a mysterious white and red house occupies the center of this composition, the subject is not really the building, but the green verge in which it is nestled, which occupies both the foreground and background.

If there is one painter whose work can be decisively compared with that of Soutine, it is undoubtedly Cézanne: "The way in which Cézanne rigorously crops and fragments the space surrounding his forms, this crushing of 'solids into flat figures' becomes more than a mere pictorial technique for Soutine. The artist transforms this visual composition into an extremely personal metaphor: it becomes a means for expressing the inevitable fusion of forms and subjects, the personification of forms, flesh and pigments, that is so fundamental in his landscapes, his still lives and his portraits" (Chaim Soutine (exhibition catalogue), Galerie Thomas, Munich, 2009, p. 65).

While the foliage of the trees and their straight trunks dominate and energize the canvas, the tall grasses and reeds as well as the clumps of bushes form the bedrock of the composition. Aside from this structure and classical framing—the artist remains faithful to the view presented to him—Soutine's touch, rich with paint, thickens, his palette lightens, colors diversify and absorb the surface of the canvas, already heralding the explosion of tones that would be revealed, a mere few weeks later, in the Mediterranean.

Soutine's pictures, known for their textural bravura and focus on the sensual beauty of objects, astounded his contemporaries. Whether portraits of the working class, depictions of local monuments, landscapes or dead animals, he was able to invest vernacular subjects with a raw beauty that set him apart from the rest of the avant-garde.  In the late 1920s, the art historian Elie Faure wrote a monograph on Soutine's work in which he extolled the artist for the passion behind his paintings and the quasi-religious fervor that he felt they expressed. Faure's analysis of these pictures, although grippingly poetic in its formal descriptions, met with much controversy and ultimately alienated that artist from the author. Although his interpretations of these pictures are debatable, Faure provided a description of the artist that captures accurately the intensity of his character. "If you saw him in the street," Faure wrote, "in the pouring rain, with his fugitive look, his hat pulled down over his eyes, his beautiful, small, pale hands, this Kalmouk's face with his straight hair covering his forehead, you would feel as if you were watching unfold the drama of the Magi pushing towards the star [of Bethlehem] in search of rest" (quoted in An Expressionist in Paris, The Paintings of Chaïm Soutine (exhibition catalogue), The Jewish Museum, New York; Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Los Angeles & Cincinatti Art Museum, Cincinatti, 1998-99, p. 34).