Did Soutine see something of himself in Parisian serving class?
Soutine’s Portraits: Cooks, Waiters and Bellboys
Backstage Parisian life – especially the staff and dancing girls of the Folies Bergère and the Moulin Rouge – was a favourite theme of Toulouselautrec, Degas and the impressionists during the Belle Époque. But, as a new exhibition of paintings by the Russian-french artist Chaim Soutine demonstrates, it could also be a rich source of inspiration during the Roaring Twenties. The exhibition, at the Courtauld Gallery, has collected 21 of his portraits of uniformed staff from the city’s grand hotels and restaurants. Their names and histories are largely unknown but they form a rare and remarkable series of studies that reflect the tensions between the anonymity and the individuality of the serving class.
Soutine is not often shown in this country – there are only two portraits and a couple of his landscapes in UK collections and there have been few exhibitions – this is the first in Britain for 35 years. But his influence runs deep. Picasso was an admirer
– he turned up at Soutine’s sparsely attended funeral in Montparnasse in 1943 – and modern British portraiture is especially indebted to him. Lucian Freud, Frank Auerbach and Leon Kossoff have all cited Soutine’s influence and his vibrant treatment of flesh tones and some of the blurred distortion of facial features anticipate Francis Bacon.
It took Soutine a while to find his voice, however. He came to Paris as an impoverished 20-year-old in 1913 and quickly fell in with Amedeo Modigliani, learning much from the Italian artist’s cool, detached portraits, his restricted palette and strong blocks of colour. Perhaps too he found inspiration in his friend’s choice of subjects. As well as his fellow artists, lovers and patrons, Modigliani famously painted peasants and, in his 1909 portrait Beggar Woman, the destitute. For his part, Soutine became fascinated by the service staff and tradesmen who served in the city’s grand restaurants and hotels, and it was a portrait of one of these – a pastry chef – which made his name. In 1923, the American collector, Albert Cbarnes, snapped it up from the struggling artist, along with 50 more of his canvases. From then on, the value of Soutine’s work soared and, over the next decade or so, his success
‘Many would also have been immigrants – at once alien and vulnerable, yet also determined, defiant’
inspired a whole series of portraits of waiters, bellboys and other domestic staff – some 25 paintings, of which all but four have come to the Courtauld.
Nothing is known about how Soutine chose his subjects. The sitters (he seems to have used about 10 in all) are never named – referred to only by their job titles – and the portraits focus consistently on the conflict between the depersonalising effect of a uniform and the character of the individual who wears it. In all cases, that tension is expressed in the awkward stretch and sag of the suits and coats – we sense the body struggling beneath the restrictive clothing. The import of the uniform is also subtly neutralised; the details of buttons and badges are lost and instead Soutine exploits the clear colour contrasts – the red waistcoat, black jackets, white overalls – to give chromatic strength to the composition. There is strength too in the poses. Some stand, or sit, legs and arms akimbo, apparently challenging their servile roll. At times, there is an almost regal air – a kitchen chair becomes a throne, though the angular energy of the occupant suggests an awkwardness rather than authority. Others are much more submissive – the elbows still jut, but the hands are folded together. There is also often a sense of distance – of tristesse, perhaps. Eyes are reduced, sometimes crossed, black, empty, paint smeared. Maybe Soutine saw something of himself in these mainly young men and women who were working around the edges of grand Paris society. Many would also have been immigrants – at once alien and vulnerable, yet also determined, defiant and independent.
But it is the quality of the painting that really catches the eye. Soutine was obviously responding to his contemporaries, especially Modigliani, but he was also looking back to the Old Masters – and spent many hours in the Louvre, obsessed in particular with Rembrandt. The rich textures and intense working of the oil paint, the depth of colour in the flesh and the backgrounds owe much to those 17th-century paintings and give such life and resonance to these portraits.