An exhibition on Chaim Soutine's works produced in Céret, southern France, was inaugurated in the museum of that town on July 17th 2000. Born in Lituania, Soutine, went from Paris to Céret at 26 in 1919 and stayed there until 1922. He often worked in open air in that small town or in the countryside and found many models among natives. During his three-year stay in Céret, Soutine made frequent visits to Paris where he used to bring his paintings to his dealer, Leopold Zborowski, who believed much in his talent despite the fact that he could not find many buyers for his works.
Today Soutine's works are much in demand on the art market, especially those produced in Céret, which are shown in its Museum of Modern art until October 15th 2000.
This exhibition has enabled to forsake for a while some of Soutine's paintings now considered as his masterpieces such as certain still lifes and portraits mainly painted in Paris and to concentrate instead on the audacious works produced in Céret, his landscapes and portraits. The result of such exhibition appears as much convincing as the other one devoted to Picasso in Céret in 1997. One must note that Dr Barnes was a keen collector of Soutine's paintings produced there and that he bought 52 of these in 1922, meaning that a majority of his best works are now in the U.S.
Some 60 paintings have been gathered for this exhibition, of which at least 40 have been loaned by U.S museums and collectors. There are being presented with a strong documentation regarding the spots where they were painted, a task which has not been too difficult in spite of the artist's tendency to distort forms. Still, he placed certain typical details in these paintings that have enabled researchers to pinpoint their exact location of execution.
Soutine had in fact stuck to some favourite spots to work and ignored those that Picasso or Juan Gris used to paint. His only interest remained Céret itself and its close vicinity. Some of the portraits shown in this exhibition bear close reminiscence with those painted by Nolde, Kirchner and other Expressionist painters with red background contrasting strongly with the looks of sitters, with also a priority given by the brush to features such as jaws, ears, orbits or lips rather than to the acuteness of eyes resulting in bold interpretations heralding the works of de Kooning for example.
Soutine painted the portrait of Monsieur Racine at least seven times in various postures. No one knows why he gave so much attention to this sitter whom he depicted like a sick man with a yellow and gaunt face somewhat much at his disadvantage as if he was foretelling his inevitable destruction.
Soutine represented all his sitters as downcast and exhausted people whatever their age or condition as if they were about to die. He adopted the same attitude with landscapes showing trees or hills about to crumble giving them an apocalyptic touch under the sunshine of Céret.
Soutine, who flirted with abstraction, was himself a tormented man who had fled from the dire conditions of a Jewish village to start a new life in France where he did not feel really at ease.
Céret was in fact a kind of heaven for Soutine, who did not feel much hostility from its inhabitants whereas he had lived in the colony of foreign artists in the area of Montparnasse in Paris with the feeling of being an outcast like many Jewish artists who had been led to recreate their own ghetto as a result of the ostracism shown by true Parisians. His anguish certainly amplified during the 1930s when French art critics turned violently against foreign influences paving the way to strong anti-Semitic reactions on the eve of the Second World War.
In some way his paintings, tense and rather morbid despite explosive colours, heralded the incoming upheavals of the early 1940s as if he sensed like Van Gogh he could not escape his tragic destiny.
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