Reframing Chaïm Soutine

This biography presents the definitive account of the École de Paris painter Chaim Soutine (1893-1943), following him from his impoverished childhood in an Orthodox Jewish community in Belarus to his time in avant-garde bohemian Paris during the interwar years and his life as a fugitive hunted by the occupying German forces during the Second World War. It tells the fascinating, dramatic and ultimately tragic story of Soutine’s tumultuous life and captivating artistry – before then analysing how the power and influence of his work continues to be felt 80 years after the artist’s premature death.

Louise Franklin challenges the popular myth of Soutine as a tormented, outsider artist at the mercy of his creative genius and instead repositions him as a considered, profoundly important painter whose work knowingly engaged with both the art of the past and the politics of his present. Arguing that he deserves to be celebrated alongside his contemporaries – such as Amedeo Modigliani, Marc Chagall and Pablo Picasso – Franklin presents new information about Soutine from archival research and the testimonies of both those who remember him and those concerned with the preservation of his legacy. This biography spares no detail in telling the story of Soutine’s life as a Jewish emigre artist and in so doing invites the reader to reconsider Soutine’s paintings in a fresh light.