Chaim Soutine

In wartime Montparnasse two immigrant painters shared the poverty and the cafes: Amedeo Modigliani, elegant and Italian, and Chaim Soutine, ten years younger, a Jewish tailor's son from near Minsk who ate badly, drank hard and painted in wild slabs of colour. Modigliani, who found Soutine's manners impossible and his talent undeniable, felt protective of him and painted him several times. This is one of those portraits. Where Modigliani often left his sitters' eyes blank and masklike, here he gives Soutine a specific, watchful face, sympathy showing through the stylisation. Around 1916 he pressed his own dealer, Leopold Zborowski, to take Soutine on as well.