L ifestyle /C ulture
Barnes Show Emphasizes Jewish Painter’s Influence
ART ELEANOR LINAFELT | CONTRIBUTING
WRITER THE FIRST PAINTINGS one
sees upon entering “Soutine /
de Kooning: Conversations in
Paint,” on view at the Barnes
Foundation are Chaïm Soutine’s
“View of the Village,” a distorted
landscape with bright oranges,
dark greens and thick, angular
lines, and Willem de Kooning’s
“Composition,” a larger abstract
piece with large swaths of vibrant
orange interrupted by sweeping
multicolored brushstrokes.

These artworks are an
excellent introduction to the
exhibition, organized by the
Barnes and Musées d’Orsay
et de l’Orangerie in Paris,
which highlights the affinities
between the two artists. While
Soutine’s painting is smaller,
darker and more figurative,
the similarities between their
styles are immediately clear.

“What links these two
artists specifically is their use
of paint and the way they are
able to create these intense
and tactile images,” Simonetta
Fraquelli, the exhibit’s co-cu-
rator and consultant curator
for the Barnes Foundation,
said. “They’re almost three-di-
mensional objects in terms of
the way that the paint is so lush
and expressive.”
The stylistic connection
between the artists is not coinci-
dental; though they never met,
de Kooning saw Soutine’s work
multiple times, including on a
visit to the Barnes in 1952, and
wrote about the influence that
the older artist had on him.

Soutine was born in a shtetl
in the Minsk region of western
Russia (present-day Belarus)
in 1893 to a Jewish tailor. He
started drawing at a young
age and was met with opposi-
tion from his community for
defying the Talmudic prohibi-
tion of graven images.

As a teenager, Soutine studied
22 MAY 27, 2021
at an academy in present-day
Vilnius, Lithuania, which
accepted Jews, and where he
learned about Russian art and
avant-garde movements. In 1913,
he moved to Paris where he met
other Jewish artists including
Marc Chagall, Ossip Zadkine
and Amedeo Modigliani.

It wasn’t until 1922, when
Albert Barnes, the founder of
the Barnes Foundation, bought
52 paintings by Soutine for his
Philadelphia collection that the
artist’s career began to take off.

Barnes was critical in bringing
Soutine’s work to an American
audience. De Kooning first saw
Soutine’s work in New York art
galleries, and was particularly
struck by the older painter’s
landmark 1950 retrospective
at the Museum of Modern
Art. The second room of the
“Soutine / de Kooning” exhibi-
tion is entirely devoted to
paintings by Soutine that were
included in the retrospective.

“I wanted to emphasize how
de Kooning would have seen
these works and the kind of
impact it would have had on
him to see all those Soutines
together,” Fraquelli said.

The following
room, centered around the theme
“Between the Figurative and
the Abstract,” highlights one
specific influence that Soutine
had on de Kooning.

In the 1950s, de Kooning
was searching for a way to work
beyond the pure abstraction that
was popular with New York artists
at the time. He found inspiration
in Soutine’s work, which straddled
the line between the figurative
and abstract, distorting the people
and landscapes it depicted. The de
Kooning artworks in this room,
including his famous Woman
paintings, also reflect this tension.

While “Soutine / de
Kooning” successfully draws
out the parallels between the
two artists, it also maintains
their differences, which are
most evident in the final room.

Landscape, c. 1922–24
Oil on canvas, 36 ¼ × 259⁄16 in. (92 × 65 cm) Musée de l’Orangerie,
Paris. Jean Walter and Paul Guillaume Collection. Artwork © 2021 Artist
Rights Society (ARS). New York Image © Peter Willi / Bridgeman Images.

Four of Soutine’s grotesque
and dark paintings of animal
carcasses hang on one wall,
while three large, bright,
abstract de Koonings make up
the rest of the room.

Throughout the show,
Fraquelli made the decision to
hang the artists’ paintings on
opposite walls to avoid drawing
overtly direct comparisons
between them.

“They were two artists from
different periods who were
painting in a different scale
and a slightly different way,”
she said.

Ultimately, the paintings
that Fraquelli and her co-cu-
rator, Claire Bernardi, chief
curator of paintings at Musée
d’Orsay, chose uphold how
extraordinary both artists were
in their own rights, while still
making Soutine’s influence on
de Kooning undeniable.

“Soutine / de Kooning:
Conversations in Paint” is on
view until Aug. 8. l
JEWISH EXPONENT
The Communicant (The Bride), c. 1924
Oil on canvas, 32⅛ × 18¾ in. (81.6 × 47.6 cm) The Lewis
Collection. Artwork © 2021 Artist Rights Society (ARS). New
York. Image © 2015 Christie’s Images Limited.

Chaïm Soutine with a chicken hanging in front of a broken brick wall, Le
Blanc, France, 1927
Courtesy of Klüver/Martin Archive
JEWISHEXPONENT.COM