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PROPERTY FROM A PRIVATE EUROPEAN COLLECTION

1893-1943
LA FEMME EN ROUGE SUR FOND BLEU

measurements
81 by 54cm.

alternate measurements
31 7/8 by 21 1/4 in.

Painted circa 1928.

signed Soutine (lower left)

oil on canvas

PROVENANCE

Georges Schick, Paris
Perls Galleries, New York (acquired by 1948)
Sydney M. Shoenberg, St. Louis
E. V. Thaw & Co., Inc., New York (acquired circa 1975)
Stephen Hahn, New York
Perls Galleries, New York
Philippe Reichenbach, Geneva
Acquired from the above by the present owner in the 1980s

EXHIBITED

Paris, Galerie de France, Soutine, 1945, no. 28, illustrated in the catalogue
New York, Perls Galleries, The Perls Galleries Collection of Modern French Paintings, 1948, no. 110, illustrated in the catalogue
Paris, XXXe Salon de Montrouge, 1986, no. 18
Tokyo, Odakyu Grand Gallery; Nara, Nara Sogo Museum of Art; Ibaraki, Kasama Nichido Museum of Art & Hokkaido, Hokkaido Museum of Modern Art, Chaim Soutine, Centenary Exhibition, 1992-93, no. 65, illustrated in colour in the catalogue
Lugano, Museo d'Arte Moderna, Chaim Soutine, 1995, no. 70, illustrated in colour in the catalogue

LITERATURE

Pierre Courthion, Soutine, peintre du déchirant, Paris, 1972, no. D, illustrated p. 262
Maurice Tuchman, Esti Dunow & Klaus Perls, Chaim Soutine. Catalogue raisonné, Cologne, 1993, vol. II, no. 125, illustrated in colour p. 695

NOTE

La femme en rouge sur fond bleu of circa 1928 exemplifies Soutine's portraiture style after 1922, characterised by the highly expressive, dramatic use of colour and the distortion of the sitter's body. The vast majority of Soutine's human images are single portraits, usually seated figures, half or three-quarter-length. While the male sitters are almost all young men or boys wearing some type of uniform - pastry-cooks, choir boys and waiters - the women are not so easily identified. In the present portrait of an unidentified woman Soutine models her face through the interaction of red and blue which is echoed in the stark contrasts between the red dress and deep blue background. A certain confrontational quality characteristic of Soutine's portraits is present in La femme en rouge sur fond bleu, achieved not only through energetic brushstrokes and the striking colour scheme but also through the positioning of the subject close to the picture plane and the flattening of the perspective.

In discussing the present work, Maïthé Vallès-Bled commented: 'The model's beautiful red dress and jewellery would lead one to suppose that she is an actress or a singer. She may also have been a guest in one of the grand hotels that the artist sometimes visited. His taste for beautiful clothes, which is not apparent in any of his previous works, now comes to the fore in some of his portraits. Soutine, who but a few years prior to this had lived in conditions of poverty and neglect, now began to cultivate his appearance. He wore clothes by the finest designers, loved to wear hats and even had his hands regularly manicured. The model's pose is elegant and her hair is painted with great care' (M. Vallès-Bled, in Chaïm Soutine (exhibition catalogue), op. cit., 1995, p. 173).