Cooks, Waiters and Bellboys
"A superb, unsettling show" --The Arts Desk "A rare and remarkable series of studies that reflect the tensions between the anonymity and the individuality of the serving class."--The Telegraph "A savagely attentive painter." --The Independent "A strikingly modern series of portraits, 21 of which ... [that] established his reputation ... the artist's broad, Expressionist brushstrokes capture the individuality of each anonymous sitter, through posture, the suggested wrinkle of a frown, the downturn of a waiting maid's eyes."--Art Quarterly, Autumn 2017 "Chaim Soutine's worker portraits are superb ... a little gem of a show." --The Times "Crushed into uniforms, forced to play one part or another on the social stage, the vulnerable, meaty essence of humanity keeps spilling out. Painting between two European wars that reduced people first to cattle then to ash, Soutine celebrates the rawness of our shared predicament."--The Guardian "Excellent essays"--London Review of Books "Excellent survey"--The Wall Street Journal "Featuring color art on every page ... [Soutine's Portraits: Cooks, Waiters & Bellboys] sets the portraits within the context of Soutine's artistic life and development and the particular culture of French art during the years after WWI."-- (05/01/2018) "Given his lowly background, it's no surprise that when Soutine turned his hand to portraiture, he took Paris's humble service staff as his subjects ... these portraits are very much alive."--New York Review of Books "Marvellous ... of art-historical importance, but even more it demonstrates a triumph of imagination and human empathy, from a period of social extremes not so unlike our own."--Financial Times "Marvellous ... there's a lot of pathos in this show. A lot of projection. But what it is most full of is blasts of pictorial courage that make the efforts of other painters of the epoch feel tepid."--The Sunday Times "Outstanding group of portraits ... these portraits played a key role in establishing Soutine's reputation ... and today are considered among his greatest achievements." --The Oldie "Powerful images of a new social class of service personnel ... considered among his greatest achievements." --Apollo "These figures take centre-stage in the dark theatre of Soutine's art, with its urgent and expressive distortions. He sees the profundity in the humblest of sitters."--RA Magazine, Autumn 2017 "This fascinating exhibition brings together for the first time Soutine's portraits of the patissiers, chefs, butchers, waiters, grooms, valets, bellhops and chambermaids of France's grand hotels and restaurants in the boom years between the wars."--The Spectator "Touching collection of portraits" --Town and Country "Tremendous ... the show is its own knockout experience requiring no explanations if you are at all intrigued by painters painting. But the catalogue adds a layer of fascination."--Evening Standard "Welcome to the hotel of your nightmares. ... at their brilliant best, the figures he creates are all compressed and shrunken, moments from bursting out in anger. You might be a guest here, but you can't help feeling a little unwelcome."--Time Out
Schroder Foundation Curator of Paintings, The Courtauld Gallery.