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Post by Deleted on Apr 9, 2009 17:37:39 GMT
Chaim Soutine is the sort of artist with whom I was vaguely familiar, without really being able to place him -- unlike Picasso, Dali or Monet, for example. He was born in Belarus in 1893 and died in Paris in 1943. One of his best friends was Modigliani, who died of tuberculosis in Paris in 1920 at age 35. In 1939 he was living in the same building as Henry Miller, who mentioned him in his journal. In any case, he was a strange man. He is one of many artists whose works were not fully appreciated until after the war. This is what Soutine looked like. So, why am I mentioning him? It is because of this episode of his life: Soutine would take on and discard women friends with heedless haste. An affair with a Russian Jewish model produced a daughter, but he refused to support the child.His daughter is still alive, and I see her every day. She lives in the same corridor as my mother, in a nursing home in Paris. She paints in her wheelchair (the wheelchair is recent, because she was still walking with a cane last year), and her room is full of canvases. She is penniless, because she received absolutely no money from her father's works, which grace museums around the world. Nevertheless, she is a charming woman, always polite and friendly. Life just never goes the way you expect.
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Post by lagatta on May 14, 2009 0:51:56 GMT
There was always a lot of self-entitlement about La Bohème ... though one expected Modigliani to get away with it more as he was so elegant and charming, from a cultivated Sephardi family with roots in Italy and southern France, unlike Soutine who hailed from the poverty and backwardness of Russian Empire ghettos. Other than being painters and being of Jewish origin they seemed to have little in common.
Is his daughter's work interesting?
Couldn't the large and well-integrated Jewish community in Paris be persuaded in taking an interest in her?
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Post by Deleted on May 14, 2009 7:13:17 GMT
I have never been invited into her room, so I have never been able to see the paintings up close.
Meanwhile, I don't think that she has ever practiced a religion, so there would be no reason for a religion-oriented community to want to look after her -- and even if they did, that would probably consist of finding a nursing home for her, which is the thing that she does not need since she is already in one. There is no lack of impoverished descendants of illustrious families in Paris...
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Post by Deleted on Apr 23, 2010 13:06:38 GMT
Strange, the other day I had my longest conversation ever with Mme. Soutine, and she was telling me about her parents. She didn't mention what her father did -- but I don't think she saw much of him anyway. She was probably talking about her mother and a stepfather. Anyway, she said that the most important thing that she inherited was her Russian culture.
If only she had inherited a few paintings, she probably wouldn't be in that nursing home.
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Post by spindrift on Apr 23, 2010 20:47:17 GMT
This is a poignant tale and I feel stricken for Mme. Soutine. Do you know what sort of a life she led? Did she marry or have a child? Was she raised in Russia? It would be interesting if you could get to know her better.
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Post by Mike on Apr 24, 2010 15:09:44 GMT
Chaim Soutine is the sort of artist with whom I was vaguely familiar, without really being able to place him -- unlike Picasso, Dali or Monet, for example. He was born in Belarus in 1893 and died in Paris in 1943. One of his best friends was Modigliani, who died of tuberculosis in Paris in 1920 at age 35. In 1939 he was living in the same building as Henry Miller, who mentioned him in his journal. In any case, he was a strange man. He is one of many artists whose works were not fully appreciated until after the war.
This is what Soutine looked like. So, why am I mentioning him? It is because of this episode of his life: Soutine would take on and discard women friends with heedless haste. An affair with a Russian Jewish model produced a daughter, but he refused to support the child.His daughter is still alive, and I see her every day. She lives in the same corridor as my mother, in a nursing home in Paris. She paints in her wheelchair (the wheelchair is recent, because she was still walking with a cane last year), and her room is full of canvases. She is penniless, because she received absolutely no money from her father's works, which grace museums around the world. Nevertheless, she is a charming woman, always polite and friendly. Life just never goes the way you expect. I would give this daughter half of any money I could raise by selling his art. I believe I have 3 such peices? Would she know if it is by him? If it is then she would be set. thanks Mike
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Post by spindrift on Apr 24, 2010 15:27:01 GMT
Mike - what a wonderful offer.....
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Post by Deleted on Apr 24, 2010 15:30:08 GMT
Well, Mike, it's a bit late to be set at the end of your life. She's been in that place the same length of time as my mother -- 4 years -- and seems quite well adjusted to her life there now. I wouldn't know if she went there voluntarily or not, but since she seems to still have her mental faculties, I guess that her other physical issues drove her there.
Spindrift, I believe that she was born in Paris, where there was a huge White Russian community after the revolution. I don't know if she ever married, but if she did, she probably wouldn't go by the name Soutine anymore. I don't think I have ever seen anybody visiting her other than the professional visitors who come there, normally from Les Petits Frères des Pauvres.
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Post by spindrift on Apr 24, 2010 22:23:59 GMT
Kerouac - if, one day, you see some violets for sale, please buy a bunch and give them to her from me....the englishwoman who has heard about her and wishes her well. And, of course, another bunch for your mother
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Post by Deleted on Apr 24, 2010 23:32:12 GMT
I never see violets for sale, but on May 1st, muguet (lily of the valley) will be on sale everywhere to bring luck for the year, and I will certainly get some for both of them at that time.
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Post by spindrift on Apr 25, 2010 15:23:04 GMT
Thank you very much. For me, the best present is to be given flowers. Somehow I always associate violets with France - perhaps a vague remembrance of a French scent.
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Post by Deleted on May 2, 2010 14:28:17 GMT
As promised, I bought some muguet (with a small red rose) for Mme. Soutine yesterday. Luckily, she was coming out of her room just as I passed it.
"This is from a friend who admires your father's work," I told her.
"Oh, this is wonderful," she said. "Nothing could have made my father happier, for reasons that I will explain to you some day. I am very touched and can't thank you enough. Could I please ask the person's name?"
I told her and she thought it was a lovely name as well.
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Post by fumobici on May 2, 2010 17:49:24 GMT
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Post by spindrift on May 2, 2010 17:55:18 GMT
Oh! I'm so happy! Thank you very much. She is a charming lady. I would like to visit her. I hope she'll tell you more about her talented father....
How nice to include a red rose with the muguet. That was a brilliant idea.
would she like me to write to her? you could ask her.
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Post by lagatta on May 4, 2010 14:51:04 GMT
Yes, that was lovely and I'm sure Mme Soutine was very touched.
(As for Mme, perhaps she never married but to me Mlle sounds grotesque for a woman middle-aged or older).
By the way, our muguet was out for May Day - usually it is about three weeks later but everything is very early this year. Some of the tulips are already spent.
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Post by Deleted on Jun 15, 2010 17:51:48 GMT
This evening, after escorting my mother to the dining room, I encountered Mme. Soutine coming out of her room on the way down to main dining room for the more autonomous residents. She is walking with a cane again, and I was glad to see her out of the wheelchair. I told her that I had had the pleasure of seeing one of her father's paintings at the Centre Pompidou Metz, the delightfully vivid "Le Groom" (the bellhop). "Oh," she said. "That one is splendid!" I told her that I had last seen it at the Orangerie and she confirmed that the paintings rotate between the Orangerie (an annex of the Louvre), the Musée d'Orsay, and now the Pompidou Metz. She was clearly quite knowledgeable about what is happening in the art world. She had not forgotten at all the flowers that I gave her 46 days ago on May 1st and the fact that she had promised to tell me more. "Do you have 5 minutes to listen?" she asked. Of course I did. She said that when her father started painting as a young man in Russia, after a few years of struggling, he found a mécène (a benefactor) who was very impressed by his work. He helped him financially but said that he needed to go to Paris, the capital of the art world, in order to be discovered properly. A grand gala was organized to raise money to send Soutine to Paris and shortly thereafter, he found himself on the train to Paris. As the train pulled out of the station in Moscow, his benefactor said "your life will become a garden of roses." "And the rose became a symbol for him from that moment on," Mme. Soutine said, "so I was touched beyond words when you gave me a rose on May 1st." She was in a chatting mood, and I was very willing to listen, so she told me that there was a new kitchen helper downstairs that had totally electrified her, because he was the spitting image of another of her father's paintings, The Pastry Chef. "The hat isn't quite the same," she explained, "but he is an absolute double of the boy in the painting." Looking at the painting myself when I got home, I was obliged to wonder if the new employee had any physical deformities, but as I morphed him into a normal human being, I think I came pretty close to what he must look like. I will have to see if I recognize him the next time I see the kitchen staff. Mme. Soutine continued on to tell me about her father's arrival in Paris and how difficult his life was. He and his friends such as Modigliani survived on almost nothing and shared all of their meager funds, whenever they had any. And then one day, the American millionaire Albert Barnes was in Paris somewhere and saw that there were some canvasses rolled up under a staircase. He unrolled them and discovered painting after painting by Soutine. "Where is the artist?" he demanded. "Oh, he's not here." "I will not move until you bring him to me." He sat down in the café Le Dôme drinking coffee and eating croissants until somebody finally found Soutine and brought him to the café. Soutine didn't want to believe that it was all for real, but somebody told him that Barnes was rich enough to buy 200 galleries in Paris if he wanted to -- and thus Soutine's career was properly launched at last. (The Pastry Chef is part of the Barnes Foundation collection in the United States.) Unfortunately the war began (yes, this was a quite long conversation), and Soutine had to go into hiding because the Gestapo despised him. Not only was he a Russian Jew but on top of that his paintings were unacceptably decadent rather than having the clean and pure lines of Nazi art. He tried to continue to work but almost never dared to go out in the street and only did so in disguise, with a big hat pulled down over his face, his coat collar pulled up, and wearing a big scarf. He desperately needed a special tube of yellow paint and went out to see if he could get it, but did not dare go into the paint store. Since there was a price on his head, anybody who saw him there might denounce him to the Gestapo. He met a beautiful young 18 year old girl and convinced her to buy the paint for him. She went to the store and bought the paint but it was the wrong shade of yellow! Soutine yelled at her and called her every name in the book. He was furious and because of her, his painting would be ruined. The young girl was mortified, even more so when her friends told her who he was. And so many years later, the young girl, Simone Signoret, told the anecdote in her book "Nostalgia Isn't What It Used to Be." Oh yes, I think I will be talking to Mme. Soutine some more.
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Post by bixaorellana on Jun 15, 2010 20:16:54 GMT
"And the rose became a symbol for him from that moment on," Mme. Soutine said, "so I was touched beyond words when you gave me a rose on May 1st."
And I was so touched to read those words in your fascinating account, Kerouac.
I keep hoping Mme. Soutine will reveal something to you that will show her father did not abandon her entirely. So far, he sounds like a royal shit, albeit a talented one.
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Post by lagatta on Jun 16, 2010 2:02:57 GMT
Simone was also part Jewish. I think Soutine was profoundly screwed up, in a different way from the beautiful Modigliani who destroyed himself with drink and other substances. I read La Nostalgie n'est plus... decades ago, but don't remember that story.
I'd love to meet her if she is still lucid when I'm next in Paris. I'm thrilled that she is walking again.
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Post by Deleted on Jun 16, 2010 9:04:25 GMT
I keep hoping Mme. Soutine will reveal something to you that will show her father did not abandon her entirely. So far, he sounds like a royal shit, albeit a talented one. I imagine that most of her anecdotes were learned second or third hand over her life by hearing so many people talking about her father. But she tells the stories like a good history teacher and makes them come alive. I don't even dare ask her if she knew her father at all. She was probably not much more than 10 years old when he died.
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Post by spindrift on Jun 16, 2010 9:33:33 GMT
This encounter demonstrates the Chain of Causation effect and Interdependence of everything. If I had not asked you to present Madame Soutine with flowers then you might not have had that most interesting conversation with her yesterday! Trite though it may be - one thing leads to another.
Perhaps you could occasionally give her a little gift of special chocolates or sweetmeat that she fancies...and maybe, one day, she might allow you to take a picture of her.
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Post by Jazz on Jun 16, 2010 21:30:09 GMT
What a story this is becoming. I don’t like Soutine’s work, but am fascinated by the period and his friends and contemporaries. He does sound like a self absorbed jerk, not uncommon for artists. It’s unexpected, yet wonderful that you seem to be slowly developing a relationship with Mme. Soutine. Given that she appears to have few visitors, I’m sure that you are making her happy and giving her a significant outlet for memories and feelings which need to be expressed, finally. She has a story that needs to be told. How old is she now? I wonder how her life progressed until coming to the home? You describe her as being gracious and relatively happy. I hope that one day she will invite you to see her paintings.
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Post by Deleted on Jun 18, 2010 16:58:44 GMT
"self absorbed jerk" = "temperamental artist" when phrased in polite terms
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Post by fumobici on Jun 18, 2010 18:27:58 GMT
I resemble that remark!
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Post by Deleted on Jul 27, 2011 20:44:06 GMT
The nursing home publishes its own little newsletter, which I think is impressive considering that 80% of the residents are incapable of reading it. But it probably pleases the employees, and it certainly pleases people like me. It is called La Gazelle de l'Oasis. I think that Gazelle instead of Gazette is quite clever. The nursing home is called l'Oasis, and it is on rue de Laghouat (a city in Algeria) in the African part of town, so the name is extremely appropriate. The current issue has a feature on Mme. Soutine. There is a very brief biography. And there is a shared questionnaire with Mounir, the nursing home accountant. He has a severe physical handicap and has great difficulty walking.
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Post by Deleted on Jul 27, 2011 20:49:10 GMT
Just for the record, all of the recent sales of major works by Soutine have been between $15 and $20 million, so I continue to wonder what she is doing in a municipal nursing home in a room identical to my mother's.
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Post by tod2 on Jul 28, 2011 8:19:05 GMT
Is her room anywhere near your mom's? Do you see her around sometimes? Does she have all her faculties or maybe does not really know where she is? Questions, questions......shit, I wish I could speak French then I could have read the newsletter!
I Googled Chaim Soutine for more info and see he is buried in Montparnasse cemetery.
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Post by Deleted on Jul 28, 2011 8:39:24 GMT
I see her every day. She is just a few doors from my mother on the same floor. She pretty much has most of her faculties, but I often hear her in passionate discussion with the nurse, as she is clearly one of those medicine freaks who wants as many pills as possible for all of her important problems. Actually, she just wants someone to talk to. (I don't have time.)
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Post by bjd on Jul 28, 2011 11:26:45 GMT
Interesting -- in the newsletter, Soutine is called a "French painter". On Wikipedia, he is "a Jewish painter from Belarus". The article also says he died of a perforated ulcer after unsuccessful surgery, not that he was "tortured by the Nazis".
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Post by joanne28 on Jul 29, 2011 17:05:39 GMT
About Soutine being a French painter, let me be cynical - his paintings sell in the millions so I think whoever wrote the article simply appropriated him as being French.
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Post by Deleted on Jul 29, 2011 17:13:52 GMT
Like Picasso. Any successful artist who lives in France becomes French. Garbage collectors or thieves who live in France even longer retain their original nationality.
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