Chaïm Soutine

Henri Bing, Paris
Sale: Hôtel Drouot, Paris, 18th May 1928, lot 118
Daniel Tzanck, Paris (purchased at the above sale)
André Lefevre, Paris
Galerie Percier-Van der Klip, Paris
Perls Galleries, New York
Mrs. Herbert Frank, Michigan (acquired from the above in May 1953)
Gallery of the Masters, Inc., St. Louis, Missouri
Martin Kodner, St. Louis, Missouri (purchased from the above by August 1982)
Barbara & Daniel Liberman, St. Louis, Missouri (acquired in 1983) 
Armand Bartos Jr. Fine Art, New York
Acquired from the above by the present owner in 1992

New York, Perls Galleries, The Perls Galleries Collection of Modern French Paintings, 1953, no. 192

Pierre Courthion, Soutine. Peintre du déchirant, 1972, illustrated p. 227
Maurice Tuchman, Esti Dunow & Klaus Perls, Chaim Soutine, Catalogue Raisonné, Cologne, 1993, vol. I, no. 26, illustrated in colour p. 137

The canvas is lined. UV examination reveals three vertical lines of retouching to the upper edge, a further short vertical line to the path in the lower right quadrant, and a diagonal line to the upper left corner. There is some very light craquelure to the white pigment in the upper right corner. Otherwise, this work is in overall good condition.
"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. Prospective buyers should also refer to any Important Notices regarding this sale, which are printed in the Sale Catalogue.
NOTWITHSTANDING THIS REPORT OR ANY DISCUSSIONS CONCERNING A LOT, ALL LOTS ARE OFFERED AND SOLD AS IS" IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE CONDITIONS OF BUSINESS PRINTED IN THE SALE CATALOGUE."

At the insistence of his art dealer Léopold Zborowski, Soutine left Paris in 1918 for Cagnes-sur-Mer with fellow artists Amedeo Modigliani and Léonard Foujita. The following year, Zborowski gave Soutine 200 francs to travel to and stay in Céret, a meeting place and source of inspiration for Cubist visionaries a decade earlier. There he would paint career-defining dynamic landscapes of bold colour, impassioned brushwork and vertiginous geographical composition. Such landscapes pick up from the restrained energy of Van Gogh and Vlaminck, and pre-date the fervent work of the COBRA movement and the Abstract Expressionists. 'Taken as a whole those [landscape paintings] extant are remarkable for the force and fusion of matter, earthiness and spirituality, variegated and brilliant colour, spatial inventiveness, the complex and solid pictorial development, all this reaches a climax here – perhaps the greatest one in Soutine's oeuvre, and even in the whole of landscape painting this century' (Rudy Chiappini, Chaim Soutine (exhibition catalogue), Museo d'Arte Moderna, Lugano, 1995, pp. 60, 62).

Promenade auprès du village marks the beginning of the pivotal and prolific period of landscape painting for Soutine. The composition's radical foreshortening brings the red-roofed village of the background into the same plane as the tree, greenery and the couple strolling along the path in the foreground. The couple, at their slanting angle, defy gravity and conventional spatial organization. The accents of vibrant red, along with Soutine's characteristic loose and dynamic brushwork, enliven the canvas of this present work with the energy of artistic inspiration and production.