- 364
Chaim Soutine
Description
- Chaïm Soutine
- Les escaliers à Chartres
- Signed C Soutine (lower right)
- Oil on canvas
- 24 by 17 1/4 in.
- 61 by 44 cm
Provenance
Mr. and Mrs. Jack I. Poses, New York (by 1973 and sold: Sotheby's, New York, May 10, 1995 lot 370)
Acquired at the above sale by the present owner
Exhibited
New York, Galleri Bellman, Chaim Soutine, 1983-84, no. 30, illustrated
Literature
Pierre Courthion, Peintre du Déchirant, Lausanne, 1972, p. 110, illustrated pp. 111 and 279B
E. Hoffman, Burlington Magazine, July 1973, p. 485
Raymond Cogniat, Soutine, 1973, illustrated p. 60
Collection du Jean Walter et Paul Guillaume (exhibition catalogue), Musée de l'Orangerie, Paris, 1984, p. 254
Maurice Tuchman, Esti Dunow and Klaus Perls, Chaim Soutine (1893-1943); Catalogue Raisonné, Werkverzeichnis, vol. 1, Cologne, 1993, no. 151, illustrated p. 285
Catalogue Note
Les escaliers à Chartres is one of three paintings of the same subject executed in 1933. "In Soutine's work the 1930s are marked by the so-called Chartres period... They [Marcellin and Madeleine Casting] invited him to their residence in Leves very close to Chartres. It was at the Casting's house where he met Eric Satie and Maurice Sachs. In Leves Soutine painted a large portion of his entire work of that period. He resumed the landscape painting he had abandoned in 1925" (M. Valles-Bled, in Chaim Soutine (exhibition catalogue), Musei d'Arte Moderna, Lugano, 1995, p. 174). Typical of Soutine's works of the late 1920's early 30's he has set up his easel in an obscure part of the town as he disliked people watching him paint. In the present work the beautifully painted, almost translucent, stone staircase is the focal point. To the left, the overbearing dominating trees throw their shadow creating this dark and unique light but the sun reflecting off of the houses in the background manages to break the darkness. To achieve a visual approximation of light, the artist relied on strong contrasts of chiaroscuro. The present work is a remarkable example of this technique, as the emphasis here is on the futility of the trees in blocking the light as it reflects off the houses and illuminates the staircase.
Fig 1. Chaim Soutine