`Soutine`s Portraits: Cooks, Waiters and Bellboys` opens at The Courtauld Gallery, London
(Artdaily.org)

This major international loan exhibition of works by Chaïm Soutine (1893-1943) is the first show on the artist in the United Kingdom in 35 years. Soutine was one of the leading painters in Paris in the 1920s and 1930s, part of the influential ‘School of Paris’ and seen by many as the heir to Van Gogh. The exhibition focuses on a group of remarkable modern portraits that helped establish Soutine’s name and reputation. Soutine’s progress is the ultimate rags-to-riches story. Born in Russia (modern-day Belarus), Soutine arrived penniless in Paris in 1913 and lived in poverty in Montparnasse alongside other immigrant artists, including his closest friend Amedeo Modigliani (1884-1920). In the early 1920s, Soutine became fascinated by the cooks and waiting staff of French hotels and restaurants, attired in boldly coloured uniforms. Over the next decade, these humble figures sat for the artist in Paris