Chaim Soutine's Still Lifes Illuminate Existential Depth at Paul Kasmin Gallery

From April 24 to June 14, 2014, Paul Kasmin Gallery presented 'Life in Death: Still Lifes and Select Masterworks of Chaim Soutine' at 515 West 27th Street in New York City. Curated by Esti Dunow and Maurice Tuchman, who co-authored the artist's catalogue raisonné, the exhibition featured sixteen works, predominantly viewed in natural daylight. The show emphasized Soutine's still lifes of dead animals, including rabbits and fowl, which explore themes of mortality and spiritual contemplation. A 1933 painting, Plucked Goose, was highlighted for its tactile, sublime presence and calligraphic execution. Soutine's work, though often associated with expressive intensity, demonstrates sophisticated pictorial invention, drawing from 19th-century naturalism while engaging with modernist developments. The exhibition catalogue included an essay by Nobel laureate Eric R. Kandel and a 1952 story by Roald Dahl. Soutine, an Ashkenazi Jew from the Pale of Settlement, fled the Nazis to Champigny-sur-Veuldre, where he painted Maternity in 1942 before dying in Paris in August 1943 after emergency surgery. Picasso attended his funeral at Montparnasse cemetery. The review contrasts Soutine's approach with artists like Francis Bacon, whose work was shown alongside Soutine's in a prior exhibition at Helly Nahmad Gallery, and notes influences ranging from El Greco to Willem de Kooning.