Soutine, Chaïm [key], 1893–1943, French expressionist painter, b. near Minsk, Russia (now Belarus). He went to Paris in 1913 and joined the bohemian society of the school of Paris. Soutine portrayed artist friends, hotel valets, choir boys, and cooks, and also painted animals (mainly butchered), still lifes, and landscapes. His art was turbulent, slashing, and visceral. He depicted slaughterhouses and human corrosion and depravity, powerfully expressing a tortured sensibility. Characteristic is his Page Boy at Maxim's (Albright-Knox Art Gall., Buffalo), executed in brilliant color and heavy impasto. Soutine is represented in many leading collections including the Phillips Collection, Washington, D.C., and the Art Institute, Chicago. The Barnes Foundation, Philadelphia, owns 100 of his works.
See catalogue raisonné by M. Tuchman, E. Dunow, et al. (1968, repr. 1993, 2002); A. Werner, Soutine (1986).
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