Chaïm Soutine, Le tzigane, 1926 Oil on canvas, 46 × 38 cm Statens Museum for Kunst, Kopenhagen Photo: open.smk.dk, public domain
Chaïm Soutine (1893–1943) is considered to be one of the greatest painters of classical modernism. His oeuvre addresses the existential, vulnerable dimension of life through expressive and vividly colored works which are pure artistic experiments. It bears impressive witness to a precarious existence lived on the margins of society. While many of his contemporaries engaged with abstraction, Soutine’s painting was figurative, extremely vivid and expressive. His works are marked by a powerful, restless line that gives his paintings an incomparable expressive force.
This major retrospective comprises some 60 works from all periods of the artist’s career, including six works from the Kunstmuseum Bern’s own collection as well as international loans. It covers all genres characteristic of Soutine – portraits, landscapes and still lifes – with a focus on the first decades of his career.
Soutine's influence on painting after 1945 can be seen among the representatives of Abstract Expressionism, CoBrA and the School of London. Willem de Kooning, Jackson Pollock and most notably Francis Bacon are his best-known admirers. Contemporary artists like Dana Schutz, Thomas Hirschhorn, and Imran Qureshi also name Soutine as a key inspirational figure.
