Soutine’s Portraits

Outstanding group of portraits ... these portraits played a key role in establishing Soutine's reputation ... and today are considered among his greatest achievements. --The Oldie A strikingly modern series of portraits, 21 of which ... [that] established his reputation ... the artist's broad, Expressionist brushstrokes capture the individuality of each anonymous sitter, through posture, the suggested wrinkle of a frown, the downturn of a waiting maid's eyes. --Art Quarterly, Autumn 2017 This fascinating exhibition brings together for the first time Soutine's portraits of the patissiers, chefs, butchers, waiters, grooms, valets, bellhops and chambermaids of France's grand hotels and restaurants in the boom years between the wars. --The Spectator Touching collection of portraits --Town and Country Crushed into uniforms, forced to play one part or another on the social stage, the vulnerable, meaty essence of humanity keeps spilling out. Painting between two European wars that reduced people first to cattle then to ash, Soutine celebrates the rawness of our shared predicament. --The Guardian Welcome to the hotel of your nightmares. ... at their brilliant best, the figures he creates are all compressed and shrunken, moments from bursting out in anger. You might be a guest here, but you can't help feeling a little unwelcome. --Time Out A savagely attentive painter. --The Independent Chaim Soutine's worker portraits are superb ... a little gem of a show. --The Times Marvellous ... there's a lot of pathos in this show. A lot of projection. But what it is most full of is blasts of pictorial courage that make the efforts of other painters of the epoch feel tepid. --The Sunday Times Featuring color art on every page ... [Soutine's Portraits: Cooks, Waiters & Bellboys] sets the portraits within the context of Soutine's artistic life and development and the particular culture of French art during the years after WWI. -- (05/01/2018) These figures take centre-stage in the dark theatre of Soutine's art, with its urgent and expressive distortions. He sees the profundity in the humblest of sitters. --RA Magazine, Autumn 2017 Powerful images of a new social class of service personnel ... considered among his greatest achievements. --Apollo Tremendous ... the show is its own knockout experience requiring no explanations if you are at all intrigued by painters painting. But the catalogue adds a layer of fascination. --Evening Standard Marvellous ... of art-historical importance, but even more it demonstrates a triumph of imagination and human empathy, from a period of social extremes not so unlike our own. --Financial Times A superb, unsettling show --The Arts Desk A rare and remarkable series of studies that reflect the tensions between the anonymity and the individuality of the serving class. --The Telegraph Excellent essays --London Review of Books Given his lowly background, it's no surprise that when Soutine turned his hand to portraiture, he took Paris's humble service staff as his subjects ... these portraits are very much alive. --New York Review of Books Excellent survey --The Wall Street Journal