Soutine`s portraits

Chaim Soutine (1893–1943) produced some of the most powerful and expressive portraits of modern times. His ability to capture in paint the character, humanity and emotion of his sitters is the hallmark of Soutine’s greatest work. The major exhibition at the Courtauld Gallery, London, focuses upon one of his most important series of portraits; his paintings of cooks, waiters and bellboys who sat for him in
Paris and the South of France during the 1920s. These works helped to establish Soutine’s reputation as a major avant-garde painter, seen by many as the twentieth centuryheir to van Gogh. This will be the fi rst time that this outstanding group of masterpieces has ever been brought together and it will be the fi rst exhibition of Soutine’s work in London for over thirty years.