Patrick Bade
Chaïm Soutine and The Ecole de Paris, Part 1

Patrick Bade | Chaïm Soutine and the Ecole de Paris, Part 1 | 06.22.22

Visuals displayed and music played throughout the presentation.

- What a wonderful image of Paris in the 1930s. It hasn’t actually changed that much. If you took the same view today from the same height, you’d see some tall buildings in the distance, but in the foreground it’s still the same. And you can probably see in the centre, a big sign for Galleries Lafayette. And if you follow the diagonal street from that to the right-hand side. I’m actually at this moment at the other end of that street. So just outside the postcard. So Paris, between 1900 and 1940, was a mecca for artists. There were brief moments of rivalry from Vienna in the early 1900s, from Berlin in the 1920s, as we heard on Sunday. But really, Paris was the queen of the, how can I put it? Anyway, it was the city that, as I said, every artist felt they had to go to. And it was reckoned in 1929 that there were 80,000 artists living in Paris, and most of those would’ve been foreigners. Initially, the poorer artists and more avant-garde artists were attracted to Montmartre, up on the hill. Here’s a young Picasso who arrived in Paris in 1900. And for a few years, from 1904 to 1908, he was living in the famous Bateau-Lavoir, which you see on the right-hand side, which was a very rickety series of studios. It was called the Bateau-Lavoir ‘cause it was so poorly built that when there was a storm it rattled and shook like a boat on the river Seine. And in this complex of studios at this time Picasso was a neighbour of Modigliani, of Van Dongen, and Max Jacob.

Then 'round about 1907, 1908, there is a mass migration of the younger avant-garde artists from Montmartre to the other side of the Seine, they all go to the 14th arrondissement, to Montparnasse. And many of them lived in this extraordinary looking structure, which does still exist, though sadly these days of course it’s been transformed into luxury apartments. But this was designed by Gustave Eiffel of the Eiffel Tower fame. And it was actually a wine store for the Paris World Exhibition in 1900. And it was dismantled and re-erected in Montparnasse and turned into artist studios. It’s called La Ruche: “the beehive”. And amongst the artists who lived in it were Chagall, Soutine, Modigliani, Lipchitz, Archipenko, and Zadkine. My guess is that, well, you’d have heard many languages in La Ruche, but plenty of Polish, and plenty of Yiddish, and plenty of Russian. So Montparnasse, there were these very famous cafes before the First World War. They all met at La Rotonde, it’s still there. And in the 1920s a new cafe opened. This was La Coupole, and that is still there, and the interior is exactly the same, and you can drop in. You can have an okay meal there and savour the atmosphere. It’s not particularly ritzy ditzy or smart, and it’s not particularly touristy, actually. And so, as in at the foot of Montmartre, of course, all sorts of places of entertainment sprang up in Montparnasse. This is the very aptly-named Rue de la Gaite, the Street of Gaieties. Was and still is lined with theatres and cabarets from end to end. This is Montparnasse on the route to Gaiety, outside and in.

Now, one of the joys, I think, for me anyway, of the lockdown lectures. I see I’ve only got one question so far in the Q&A. But I love the questions. And it gives an opportunity, really. And I love the comments, sometimes, even if they’re negative ones, 'cause it’s interesting. And it’s great to be able to have this kind of dialogue with people all over the world. So I’m going to do a digression now. Well, it’s relevant but it’s a digression. 'Cause I want to follow up on a comment that somebody made, I presume a British person, 'cause they were slightly sniffy about my comment that when Spoliansky and the other Berlin cabaret composers left Germany, that they were uprooted. They they couldn’t really continue their careers of cutting-edge experimental theatrical music, cabaret vitae and so on, especially not in London. And somebody said, well, it’s probably a good sign that they didn’t see anything very shocking in Spoliansky’s songs. 'Cause it does show that we’ve moved on from the 1920s and 30s, and what was shocking then is perfectly acceptable today. But I would say that, actually, there are a couple of very important factors here. One is that anything, any text spoken or sung on the stage in Britain at this period had to be censored, had to go to the Lord Chamberlain to be passed.

This went right back to the 18th century. It came about a result of the scandal associated with the Beggar’s Opera in the 1720s, that the authorities didn’t want either political or moral provocation coming onto the stages of the London theatres. And there was simply no way that Lord Chamberlain would’ve passed the sort of songs that were presented to the Berlin public in the 1920s, or even, I would say, many of the songs that you might’ve heard in the Rue de la Gaite. On the left, we’ve got, I played you a bit of Vendibles de Freunden, Marlene Dietrich and Margo Lion obviously engaged in a same sex relationship, and the song by Spoliansky. And on the right hand side, Das lila Lied, the Lilac Song, which has been hailed as the first gay hymn. It’s really, in a way, proclaiming the right of men and women to have same sex relationships if they wanted. And believe me, there was no way you could’ve put that on the stage. Well, for one thing, male same sex relationships were a criminal offence right up to the 1960s. So I find this rather an interesting juxtaposition. Well, as well as of course, the problem with censorship. I just don’t think that the British theatre going public in the 1930s were ready for Spoliansky and Kurt Weill, and all of these people. They were hooked to the Ivor Novello and Regency romances, Ruritanian romances.

So perhaps, I’m juxtaposing here, “We’ll Gather Lilacs,” which was a huge success on the London stage. Sweet. The English middle classes didn’t want any nastiness. They just didn’t want anything that was not quite nice. And they certainly would’ve found the Lilac Song of Spoliansky less than not quite nice. And coming back to France, this is Suzy Solidor, you can see it says, “Star of the Cabaret.” And I’ve been thinking about this since Sunday and at some point I’d really like to put together a talk, if Wendy would be willing, looking at the way songs in Berlin, Paris, London, and New York reflected attitudes in the interwar period, attitudes about love, attitudes about sex. And again, Parisian attitudes, it wasn’t quite maybe as out there as Berlin in the 20s. It was certainly, Paris was incomparably more liberal, particularly for same sex relationships between women. It was very open, very accepting in the interwar period. French, it’s the songs that were sung in the cabarets and the theatres, Rue de la Gaite. Again, they have texts very often that would never have been allowed in London. A lot of songs dealing with prostitution, a lot of songs dealing with various kinds of substance abuse. Suzy Solidor, she had her own nightclub where she performed these songs. She was a very, very out lesbian. She was the most, I suppose, the coolest, most fashionable lesbian in Paris. And her big hit song, I was listening to it this morning, it’s called “Ouvre”, and she sang in a very gravelly, very deep, rather masculine voice. And she, “Ouvre la fenetre,” open your window in the morning. And then she says, “open your blouse so that I can touch your breasts.” And then she goes down the whole body. “Ouvre tes cuisses tremblantes,” “open your trembling thighs,” she sings.

Again, not something for the English Lord Chamberlain. So human nature is human nature, and certain things will out. And what I think is quite interesting with the English, they did find ways of getting 'round the Lord Chamberlain, or some performers did. Famously Mary Lloyd in the earlier part of the centre, marvellous musical artist. When Sarah Bernardt came to England she was very unimpressed by all the English actors and actresses. She thought they were rather amateur. She said she thought that the only stage performer who was worth comparing with her and the great French was Mary Lloyd. Mary Lloyd was the mistress of the nudge-nudge, wink-wink, double entendre. And the story I love about her, concerning her, is that she was waging a constant war, really, with the moralists, and with the moral vigilantes. And on one occasion she was hauled in front of a committee and they asked her to perform her songs. And she performed all her naughtiest songs, but completely without the nudge, wink, wink. And they taken in. And they said, “well, that’s fine, we can’t see anything wrong with these songs.” And she said, “Well, before I go, can I perform for you one more song? I’d like to sing the Victorian ballad, 'Come Into the Garden, Maud’”. And she sang it in such a way that of course they were just absolutely shocked, horrified. She was making the point, of course, that obscenity is in the ear of the listener, or the eye or the beholder.

In America, they were also pretty prudish. Of course you’ve got the brief period in Hollywood in the early 30s where there were some pretty raunchy films and some pretty raunchy songs, but then the Hays Code came in. And certainly on Broadway, I don’t think you could’ve got away with the kind of songs that you would’ve heard in Paris or Berlin. But an exception was really made for black artists. And again, somebody like Bessie Smith, they’re doing the same thing that Mary Lloyd did. You know, so Bessie Smith, she sings these wonderful, rather lugubrious songs. “I woke up this morning with an awful ache in the head, and my man’s left me and I’ve got the empty bed blues.” And then she goes on about her lover’s coffee grinder. Well, it’s up to you really how you take that, if she’s really singing a song about her love for strong coffee, or something else. And then of course, in the early 30s, Mae West had her battles with the censorship. And what was really original and extraordinary about Mae West, she was a white woman who learned all her tricks from black performers. She was singing like a black singer, and she was using the same kind of double entendre, hidden language, to get her message across. There was a very extraordinary incident in 1931 when Cole Porter presented a musical called “The New Yorkers”. It’s remembered today for one of his greatest songs, which is “Love for Sale”.

Now, ‘cause prostitution is an absolute theme of French art all the way through the 19th century. Great novelists, great painters, Degas, Manet, they’re all, Toulouse-Lautrec. And then all the way through this period of Ecole de Paris prostitution is the key theme. But it wasn’t one that you could’ve presented to either a British or an American audience, or at least in New York. “Love for Sale,” Cole Porter was forced to withdraw it. It was originally, the performer who sang it, she was called Catherine Crawford, you see her on the left hand side. And what people couldn’t accept was that a white woman should go on stage and sing about prostitution. So, Cole Porter withdrew the song and he re-presented it later in the run with the black singer, Elizabeth Welsh. It was okay for a black woman to sing about prostitution. And well, the good thing about that is of course, that it was a great breakthrough for Elizabeth Welsh and the start of a long and glorious career for her. So, quite a similar thing actually in England where transvestite, or camp, gay performers had permission to get away with a level of double entendre that would not have been accepted from straight performers. And this is the transvestite singer and comedian, Dougie Byng.

And they’re pretty outrageous, his songs. You can try them out on YouTube. My favourite one is, “The King is Just a Queen at Heart,” and it contains the immortal line, “The king is just a queen at heart. He’ll be gay to the end, till he’s too old to bend. The king is just a queen at heart.” And you think, hmm, well I wonder, maybe the Lord Chamberlain just didn’t get it. He probably didn’t quite understand the implications of that line. Anyway, back to France, back to Montparnasse, and I want to give you a flavour of Montparnasse in the 1920s with the amazing singer Frehel. She’d started off in the early 1900 actually as a prostitute, and she was a babe, she was gorgeous. I should’ve shown you a picture too of her when she was young, before the First World War. She had her breakthrough in cabaret to fame, and she became the lover of Maurice Chevalier. But he dumped her for Mistinguett. And she attempted a crime of passion. She attempted to stab them both, and she had to flee from France. She fled to Romania, where apparently she became the lover of the Queen of Romania, who is very interested, one way or another, in female singers. I’ve read a number of autobiographies of singers, classical singers who said, “Ooh, the dear Queen of Romania, she took such an interest in my career.

Anyways, after that incident, she fled to Turkey and she was working brothels in Turkey. And she came back to France in the 1920s with a completely new image, the sort of ravaged, tragic, well, an American would say torched singer. This is my favourite of her songs, and it has my favourite line, I think, from any French song of this period. The song is called "La Coco,” which is cocaine. And it’s a song both about prostitution and about various kinds of substance abuse. I mean, in the course of this song, I think she drinks champagne, brandy, as well as taking cocaine. And she says she was very unhappy because her gigolo, her pimp has dropped her for another woman, and she goes out on the town and she wants to have a good time. But she takes morphine as well, “Je me morphine,” you’ll catch her saying. And then finally, she says, she sees him with a new lover and she’s so angry she stabs him to death. And she has the wonderful line, “Oui, j'etais grise,” I was a bit drunk, “j'ai fait une betise,” I did a really silly thing, “J'ai tue mon gigolo,” I killed gigolo.

♪ Music plays ♪

♪ J'avais un amant depuis quelques mois ♪ ♪ Je l'aimais de toute mon ame ♪ ♪ Mais il m'a quitte sans savoir pourquoi ♪ ♪ Il a brise mon cœur de femme ♪ ♪ Et depuis je vais partout ou l'on boit ♪ ♪ Dans toutes les maisons ou l'on soupe ♪ ♪ Je sors tous les soirs, esperant le voir ♪ ♪ Et le champagne emplit ma coupe ♪ ♪ Quand je suis grise, j'dis des betises ♪ ♪ J'amuse les gigolos ♪ ♪ Comme les copines, je me morphine ♪ ♪ Ca me rend tout rigolo ♪ ♪ Je prends de la coco ♪ ♪ Ca trouble mon cerveau ♪

Yes, copine like my French. Je me morphine, I take morphine. And I take cocaine and it troubles my head. Well, as I said, the Ecole de Paris is largely made up of non-French artists. Ecole de Paris, in a way, is a bit of a misnomer. So here are three of the major figures. There’s the Mexican Diego Rivera, the Romanian Brancusi, and the Japanese Fujita. Fujita, the rather drunk looking young lady, bottom left, she’s Kiki de Montparnasse. She was an artist, model, lover of Man Ray. She posed for the photograph which was recently sold for the world record sum for any photograph. It’s called the she’s called the Le Violon d'Ingres, and then you see her nude from the back looking like a cello. And on the right here we’ve got a song celebrating Montparnasse in this period, Montparnasse Montparno. I have a copy of this song framed on the wall just in front of me. And I managed to find a copy of it for Wendy. These song sheets of the period are so evocative. And you can see the song sheet shows these two iconic figures of the Ecole de Paris, Foujita and Kiki de Montparnasse. And it was sung, as you can see, cree par Marie Dubas was the top female entertainer in France.

She herself was of Polish Jewish origin, but very Parisian, very, very French, an amazing character with a very interesting life. At some point I’d like to do a whole talk about her. So you’d think that when did they get time to paint? They were so busy having parties. And Foujita and Kiki de Montparnasse, of course they were every party going. Chagall, of course, is one of the key figures of the Ecole de Paris. But as I talked about him on Sunday, I’m just going to mention him in passing today. And the same for Sonia Delaunay, 'cause I’m going to be talking about her in a week or so. And Modigliani, I’m actually not including him today, apart from these images, although of course, he is a very key figure of Ecole de Paris. I’m concentrating today on, well certainly on Soutine, when I get to him. But this time and on Sunday I’m going to talk about the Ecole de Paris artists of Eastern European origin, ones who came from Russia, Belarus, Lithuania and Poland, and Ukraine, mustn’t forget Ukraine. So Modigliani, amazingly handsome man, drop-dead handsome. He was sort of a Marcello Mastroianni lookalike. So he and Soutine made a bit of an odd couple. Modigliani was just a few years older. He’d arrived in Paris in 1906. Soutine arrived in 1915. Modigliani of course was also Jewish, but he was from a Sephardi background. And he came from a bourgeois, highly assimilated, highly cultivated family.

Whereas Soutine came from the toughest, most impoverished shtetl background. You wouldn’t really have thought they would’ve got on. But Modigliani was very loving towards Soutine. He was obviously very fond of him, and took on the role of mentor and tried to help him in every possible way. You’ve got a self-portrait of Soutine on the left hand side, and this wonderful, actually it’s one of my absolute favourite portraits by Modigliani of Soutine. And I think it’s a painting where you really sense the affection that Modigliani had for the slightly younger Soutine. Soutine must have been a slightly alarming person to meet for many people. He was uncouth, very literally unwashed. There are real horror stories, one of them about him having terrible ear ache and going to a doctor and the doctor examined him and found a whole colony of little animals inside his eardrum. And you might not have really wanted to be a neighbour to him in Laroche. He had this partial for painting slaughtered animals, and sometimes the blood would seep out from under his studio door, and people thought that a terrible murder had been committed.

He could scrub up though. Here he is looking, I think, not entirely comfortable in his rather expensive smart suit, sitting in the drawing room of his neighbour, the sculptor Shanna Oloff. And before, I can see we’ve already got 24 comments. I think most of those must have come about from what I said about the songs. But before we get another 24 telling me I’m pronouncing Shanna Oloff wrong, I do know that she was born Hannah, but she called herself Shanna. And I know that cause I’ve heard it from her granddaughter. I’ve been twice to her studio, and been taken around by her granddaughter. Very moving experience. She and and Soutine were nextdoor neighbours in purpose-built artists studio houses in Montparnasse. Here you can see her on the right hand side. So, Soutine lived in grinding poverty in Paris for the first seven years. He was helped, as I said, by Modigliani, was taken up by the dealer Paul Guillaume. And Modigliani began to find clients, and his work was going for decent amounts of money. And he said to Guillaume, I will only let you represent me if you agree to represent Soutine as well. So, Guillaume took Soutine on.

And then, in 1922, he had a visit from the famous Dr. Albert Barnes from Philadelphia. Barnes was a remarkable man, a difficult man by all accounts, an there is a certain irony, I suppose, that his great fortune that enabled him to buy these pictures was made from an antiseptics. You sort of think, well, maybe, probably poor Soutine could’ve done with a few doses of antiseptics. Well, you see Dr. Barnes looking very, very smart. He was a man, he knew what he liked. And he’d visit all the top dealers and they’d show him their work, but he was his own man. And probably Guillaume was really surprised when Dr. Barnes, it was love at first sight. He saw this picture, a little pastry cook. This was the very first picture by Soutine that he bought. And he went on to buy another 50 paintings by Soutine. So suddenly, Soutine left his grinding poverty behind him and he was rich. He just turned up one day at the gallery and they said, well, here’s the money from Dr. Barnes four 50 paintings. So he was given a huge wadge of notes. And he said, thank you and he left the gallery. And he hailed a taxi, and he said to the taxi driver, drive me to Nice. And he went down to Nice and he thought, up until the outbreak of Second World War, he could live very comfortably.

You can see the expensive suit that he bought for himself. And he liked staying in expensive hotels, and he liked going to expensive restaurants. Don’t we all? And he was particularly fascinated, a lot of his best portraits were inspired by people that he encountered in these luxury hotels. He wasn’t interested in the guests, and the elegant, and the wealthy people in the hotel. He was interested in the staff of the hotel on all floors of the Grand Hotel. There’s another painting of a pastry cook. And I’d like to show you these two details. It’s Soutine, of course, on the left, and a Monet snow scene on the right. Monet is often said to be the first artist who understood that snow is not white. Particularly on a sunny day, snow picks up up all sorts of colours. You’ve got multicoloured snow with Monet. An Soutine, he understands that a pastry chef’s white uniform is not just white, it’s full of colour.

Now, I will declare my allegiance to Soutine. He’s absolutely my favourite of all these artists of the Ecole de Paris. I think he’s wonderful. And there was a recent, in fact, there’ve been two shows over the last year or so with Soutine in Paris. And my images can do no justice to how wonderful these paintings are. You need to stand in front of them. He’s one of those great, great painterly artists. The paint surface is just amazing. Lots of wet in wet, which is a very difficult technique to do. Lots of scraping through the wet paint. Just the paint surface itself is extraordinarily exciting. Like this touching painting of a little girl having her first communion. Adorable. Actually, it reminds me very much of, my sister makes very, very beautiful dolls, and they look actually quite like this. But my guess is that the reason he chose the first communion, it’s a cliche subject. You could’ve gone to any salon and seen lots and lots of rather icky sentimental paintings of sweet little girls in their first communion dress. But again, I think probably what really fascinated him here, well I think he’s touched by the little girl, but I think it’s what he could do with her white costume. And to remind you of a very icky painting by Tamara Lempicka of her daughter’s first communion.

So, there’s none of that sort of sentimentality, and there’s none of the sort of slightly queasy-making, almost paedophile sexiness I would say, that you find in the Tamara Lempicka. I think Soutine, he has an empathy with his subjects. They all have this extraordinary humanity. Now, apart from a few commissioned portraits, we don’t usually know the identity, we don’t know the names of these people. There’s only one of any of his paintings where we actually know of staff of hotels and restaurants where we actually know the name of the sitter, and that is really by accident. But look at these two. They’re so vividly characterised. You feel you know them. There’s a very strong sense of their individuality and their personality that comes across. This is the only photograph we have, and it’s taken of course several years later, of somebody who, this is the little pastry chef the boy who attracted the attention of Dr. Barnes. And as you can see, his name was Remi Soketo. And these two, oh my goodness. I hope these two actually didn’t belong to this. I’d hate to think of that little boy, who’s the sort of sous chef under the control of this rather nasty looking character on the left hand side. You know how, as I said, how vividly characterised they are, you really feel that you know these people. So, I think one of the things that interested Soutine in these grand hotels and grand restaurants was the hierarchy. A grand hotel or a restaurant employed an absolute army of servants of one kind or another, and each had a very specific role, and each was on a particular level in the hierarchy.

You had to respect the person above you and you could bully the person underneath you. If you want to get an idea of this, a book that I recommend to you is George Orwell’s, “Down and Out in Paris and London.” He worked in various grant hotels and restaurants. One of the hotels he worked in was the Hotel Edouard Setp, which is a wonderful hotel, I know it really well. 'Cause whenever I worked for Martin et Randall, we always stay in that hotel on Champs-Elysees, and it’s an immaculately run hotel. But if you read George Orwell, it might actually put you off going ever eating a meal or staying a night in a grand hotel ever again. Those four young men or boys at the top, those are actually employees of the Hotel Edouard Setp. These are more conventional paintings, and it wasn’t unique, the subject matter wasn’t particularly unusual, it’s his treatment that’s unusual. So, this is an Orpen on the left hand side, and I dunno who the paint artist is on right hand side, some French academic artists.

There were lots of these pictures to be found in exhibitions at the salon and so on. But the Orpen, I think, is quite a good painting in its way. But most of these paintings were very trivial, and anecdotal, and jokey. Another pastry chef, pastry cook. And it’s a harmony, isn’t it? Well it’s three, it’s red, white and blue. Well, I suppose it’s a Union Jack or the French Tricolour. More likely the French Tricolour. And again, just look. Isn’t that absolutely astonishing? That the white of the pastry chef’s, and the excitement, the sense of almost electric excitement that comes across in the way the paint is applied to the surface. And here again, red. Of course, red is a very, very important colour to him, 'cause red is the colour of blood, but he’s one of those artists, Munch is another one actually, who can really make red sing. I suppose it’s what is around the red that gives it this incredible intensity in the paintings of Soutine. A female employee of another hotel or a restaurant. He tends to paint more men than women. I find her very, again, incredibly touching. The one artist I’d really like to compare him with, and I’m sure he’d be pleased to be compared with, is Rembrandt. That what they have in common is that you’re intensely, when you get very close. These geo details are really close. This is Rembrandt, Margaretha de Geer, it’s the National Gallery in London.

You’re so aware of the fact that this is a flat surface with sticky marks on it. And you’re very aware of the texture of the sticky marks. You’re aware of what the French call the matiere, the matter of the paint, and that’s true in both these two pictures. And there there’s a kind of magic though, where as you retreat from the picture, that these sticky marks on the surface coalesce and they become human. And as I said, there is this incredible humanity, a very, very touching quality to the painting of Soutine. Soutine on the left, and a detail of Rembrandt’s, one of his portraits of his son Titus. But for me, one of the most exciting parts of that painting is, just look at the way he’s painted the wood of the desk in the lower part of the image, with all the scumbling, dragging of dryish paint. Very, very interesting paint texture. So, Soutine also is a great landscapist. And here I think he has certainly a debt to Van Gogh, particularly the very latest paintings of Van Gogh that he did in the last couple of months of his life in Auvers, where you sense an extraordinary excitement. It’s almost like a paroxysm that the whole of nature is caught up in this passion. They’re passionate, passionate paintings, and you sense the passion in the way that the marks are put onto the surface, and the rhythms that run through the brush work.

Here is, of course, a very famous Van Gogh, one of the last, if not the last painting he painted of the crows over the cornfield where again, you’ve got this very passionate, very emotional, very excited, overexcited application of paint. And this is a little bit blurred I’m afraid, but it does get the– I took this at the last Soutine exhibition in Paris. But this tremendously exciting paint surface. So he’s also, as I said, very famous for his paintings of dead animals. And the inspiration, I think, for his paintings of flayed ox in particular, is the very famous painting by Rembrandt, an extraordinarily. That painting, incidentally, by Rembrandt, which is in the Louvre, and in the 19th century, it actually was covered, It had a curtain in front of it 'cause it was considered too shocking. When you think of the sexy nudes and really outrageously, almost obscene paintings you could see at the salon at the same period, it’s interesting that a naked flayed ox was considered too much for ladies to look at. And there is a paradox here, that the paintings are of something horrific. I must admit that I do eat meat, but I really don’t like going into butchers.

There’s a sense of disgust that you can feel when you are presented with a bleeding corpse of an animal. And yet, these paintings are, I think, both moving and very, very beautiful, they’re aesthetically beautiful. I think of Delacqua saying that, that Gericault’s paintings of severed heads were the best argument for the true nature of beauty. Beauty is not prettiness, beauty is something else, and beauty can have a very terrible side to it. So there’s the Sublime, with a capital S as defined by the romantics in the late 18th century. Sublime is beauty that has an element of horror or terror in it. So I think this painting is Sublime in the correct meaning of that word. And another artist, of course, who aims at this, and to my mind, he rarely actually achieves it on the level that Soutine does, is Francis Bacon, who also paints largely horrific subjects, and very much making you aware of the matter of the human body, what we’re made out of, flesh and blood. And so, Soutine certainly adored Rembrandt and paid many visits to the Louvre. I’m not sure if he ever came to London, so I don’t know whether he knew the Rembrandt “Bathing Woman” on the right hand side, which is in the National Gallery in London, but he certainly knew reproductions, and I think it’s the clear inspiration for the picture you see on the left hand side.

So, as I said, he led a rather unconventional life. And as far as money was concerned, it was easy come, easy go. And he liked going to smart restaurants and so on. And always fine, until of course the outbreak of the Second World War and the collapse of France, and the German invasion. My feeling about him is that he was a man, simple, almost in the negative meaning of the word. Not stupid, 'cause obviously there was an incredible sensibility there, and an intelligence, even though he had no background education, but there was a simplicity of character, and maybe this was what prevented him from escaping in time. He could’ve escaped, and he had a reputation in America. He could’ve lived in America. I’m sure if he’d gone to Varian Fry, Varian Fry would have got him out. But it was probably a bit like, you know, I repeated that famous story of Chagall saying, “I’m not sure if I can go to America. Do they have trees, do they have cows in America?” Soutine may have felt something of the same. But of course, he had to leave his beautiful studio apartment in Montparnasse and he had to go into hiding, constantly moving around to try and evade detection. And in 1943, as you can see, he died of a perforated ulcer. It was not something that one should’ve died of in 1943.

Because he was a afraid of being betrayed, because he was in hiding, he didn’t get the necessary medical treatment. So indirectly, he was also a victim of the Holocaust. He’s buried in the cemetery of Montparnasse, and as you can see, he’s buried in a Christian tomb, which actually he shares with his mistress who was a Christian. I’m not sure if he was religious at all, on whether it would have mattered to him that he was given Christian burial. But probably under the circumstances, at the height of Second World War, he could hardly have been given a Jewish burial. Anyway, I think I’m going to stop now 'cause it’s a natural place to break. I’m going to start off next week by looking at another very fascinating character, Max Jacob. This is his portrait by Modigliani. And this is a drawing on the right hand side, it’s actually in this room just beside me, by Max Jacob, and I’ll talk about these pictures next week. So, I’m going to stop here, and I can see that there are actually now quite a lot of questions, so I’ll get into those.

Q&A and Comments

Good, I’m glad you’ve got the slides, and thanks very much to Judy for sorting out that problem. Thank you, Rose.

Q: “In the absence of many great Jewish artists, generally, why do you think?” A: I think it’s the actual process of assimilation. I think it’s the same thing. I mean, Jewish Genius, which is, you know, the Norman Resh book, read the Norman, if you haven’t read it. I think it it’s a process, I think it’s a dynamic. I don’t believe it’s genetic. I think it’s something, it came about through a historical process. And yes, I mean the artist, of course the terrible thing was an exhibition at the Musee de Montmartre. No Montparnasse, which suddenly doesn’t exist anymore, it must be about 15 years ago and I still have the catalogue of Jewish artists of the Ecole de Paris in Montparnasse, and there were dozens of them where you knew almost nothing about them. If it were not for the Holocaust, many, many more artists would be known to us. Because the tragedy, the big tragedy is of course that they were murdered. But not only were they murdered, but their studios were pillaged, and very often their life’s work was destroyed. So if they hadn’t already achieved a certain reputation, that was it. They were just obliterated from the face of the earth and obliterated from history. I would love to do a lecture about songs, and I’ll talk about that with Trudy and Wendy and see what they think. Maybe at some point where we’re in between serious subjects I could do that.

• That’s a great idea, that’s a great idea. Thanks.

• Thank you, Wendy, as well. We’ll do it next time we have a holiday period perhaps. For the club scene on homosexuality at the time. This is Susan. She recommends Francine Prose, “Lovers at the Chameleon Club, Paris 1932”. I don’t know that. I will look for that up. Sounds interesting. Ron’s also saying he’d like. And blues and jazz, of course Bessie Smith. And those records, it was some kind of underground records, not made by major companies, often with really, really extraordinary words.

Q: Do I know Paula Vogel’s play “Indecent”? A: No, I don’t.

Faces the impact of the Polish play “God of Vengeance”, when the American-Jewish audiences were known to accept the themes of lesbian . Thank you. Yes, double standards at this period are fascinating. And Mae West, of course, she was a very courageous woman, and she had a few battles on her hands. And eventually, of course, in the late 30s, she was really tamed. You know, after the Hayes Code was brought in, her films became a lot less raunchy.

Q: “The guy with the white cat, is he Man Ray?” A: No, the guy with the white cat was Fujita.

The quavering style. It’s a rapid vibrato. It tends to be something, of course, you find it in Italian singers of the inter war period. English people and Americans tend not to like it. I love it, personally. For me it’s like a ripple of electricity running through the voice. Modigliani played by Gerard Philipe. I don’t know, but he would be perfect for him, he was a very handsome man. Modigliani is from Livorno and Soutine is from Belarus. Barnes, it was just a spontaneous thing. He saw paintings in the gallery of Giom and he fell in love with them and decided to buy 50 of them. Growing up in the 50th and 69th, everyone was so prudish and sex was never mentioned. I know well, of course, it was very like that in Britain, I remember from my childhood, as well the 60s, of course, was where it all started to change, and when censorship was dropped and homosexuality was decriminalised.

Q: How did Soutine learn to paint? A: I think he was just such a natural. I don’t think he had much of a formal training. I just think it was in him.

A session on the Cone sisters. My great friend Marina Vasu used to lecture on the Cone sisters. I’ll ask her what I should do to learn about them. They, of course, again, remarkable collectors, very farsighted. This is Susan who says that Barnes actually bought 60, I said 50, you say 60. I’ll have to check on that.

Q: “Is it possible to remove the hand icon from the slides?” A: Sorry about that. I’m not very good on these technical things.

Q: “In the pastry boy, one of the ears is huge. Is that a referral to his experience?” A: No, I don’t think so. I don’t think so. Ooh, how interesting.

Barnes’s patent concoction was actually proved to be toxic because of its silver content. ♪ “Brilliant eyes.” Yes, aren’t they? On the communion girl. I have a lecture on Modigliani that I could do, but he doesn’t really fit into the present series, but no doubt he will come up at some point. Oh, that exhibition at the Courtauld, that was. I went to see it many times. I find it such a moving and extraordinary exhibition. It’s very rare to find a Soutine. No, he produced quite a lot actually. There is quite a lot of Soutine. He had a career of quarter of a century. Louise, I will ask my sister, or I’ll even put you in contact with her. I’m sure she would be very happy to help you if she can. Albert Barnes, born in Philadelphia was a chemist, invented Argyrol, a silver nitrate antiseptic. Prevented newborn blindness due to gonorrhoea, is really a remarkable art collector. Yes, all of that is true. Patricia’s saying, your favourite French artist. I really concur with that. He is really amazing. And it’s interesting you think of him as French. He was, of course, French by adoption. Roberta also rating him tops. Recommendation of “Down and Out in Paris”. Yeah, it’s a very readable book. It’s in English of course.

Q: “Is he making a political statement?” A: I’m not quite sure what you are asking me there.

Q: “Did he suffer from men mental illness?” A: I don’t know. Well, until the terrible end, he’d managed, I think, quite a good life. But who’s to say really?

“Many of the best Soutine paintings in the Courtauld exhibition came from the incredible collection of billionaire Joe Lewis, who was from a Jewish family, grew up in a pub in Bo London. That’s interesting. "Tristes in many’s of Soutine’s paintings.” I think you’re right. There’s a very touching quality, and there is a sadness. But it’s not sentimental. I don’t find it sentimental. The ox definitely has strong human illusions, quite right about that. Yes it does. That is a painting as much about the fate of humanity as it is about the fate of that particular ox. No, he didn’t marry, but he had a long-term mistress who is buried with him. I don’t think they’re married. I better check on that.

Q: “Any idea why Soutine favoured posing so many of his subjects with their hands on their hip?” A: No, I need to think about that. I did see that Soutine exhibition.

Q: “Why the cross on the tomb?” A: It’s because his mistress was Christian and she shares the tomb with him. He definitely was Jewish, he wasn’t Christian. But I’m not sure if he was religious. As far as I know he wasn’t christened either.

That’s an interesting point, that if he grew up in a shtetl, he would’ve been witness to Jewish ritual slaughter of animals. I don’t know. I wouldn’t like to comment whether it’s a. I think it’s sad if people feel ashamed of their heritage, but I don’t find it sad that he didn’t necessarily stick to the religious ideas of his background. Thank you for nice comments. The name of the book I recommended is “Down and Out in Paris and London,” Billy Holiday. There are wonderful versions, aren’t there? Billy Holiday, of course, terrific. Love for Sale. Bonhams, yes, have got a, but it’s lesser known. But you can still pick up Ecole de Paris paintings at auction in Paris very, very cheaply. And you can find drawings and stuff at the flea markets for next to nothing. Apart from his major buyer of his paintings. I think he was well received and admired. He was quite an established artist.

Singing styles. Interesting how many singers use similar style which varies between periods of time. It’s true, technique and style in classical music and opera. You can hear, quite apart from the recording quality, you can hear when a recording was made by the sound or by the technique of the singer. Shanna, or Hannah, if you want to call her that, Oloff, I’ll be talking about her in the second part of this talk. It’s a very freestyle. Yes, definitely smiling, a very expressive star. The play “Indecent” was at the mini chocolate factory to rave reviews. Oh, Miriam. Thank you, Miriam. Incidentally I was having discussion with people, who we would like to be president if we ever lose the monarchy, and two people came up, one was Miriam Margolyes and the other was David Attenborough. So I think actually that would be, I’d quite like the two of them. I think that’d be great to have them as president. Book about Mystique of the Jews. It’s the book… What’s it called, Genius? It’s the Norman Albrecht book. Trudy interviewed him. If you google Norman Albrecht, you’ll you’ll find it. Pascal’s coming up next time. Love Pascal, I’ve got one actually. I’ll show it to you next time.

Q: “Coming from a poor shtetl, how did Soutine have the boldness to repaint Rembrandt?” A: It’s a homage, isn’t it? That painting is a homage to Rembrandt.

Joan Erbe’s children, slightly reminiscent of Soutine’s? Possibly, yes. And please, I don’t want to hear comments like that from Abigail, that’s not nice. And I’ve reached the end.

Thank you very much, and I’ll continue with the Ecole de Paris on Sunday.