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Untitled: Women’s clothing and ageing femininity in the portraits of Chaim Soutine

Franklin, Louise

Authors



Abstract

Chaim Soutine’s (1893–1943) representation of clothes in his portraits has attracted very little scholarly or curatorial attention to date. For the first time in the near century of literature that has accumulated about the artist, this article discusses the women in Soutine’s portraits, focussing on their clothing and age, and ageing femininity more generally as a subject within Soutine’s practice. The
status and fashions of women in inter-war France provide a context to demonstrate that youth, newness and fashionableness were not subjects for the artist, who instead favoured white women of middle- to older-age wearing their ‘Sunday best’ as his models. His practice of framing, containing and presenting women for inspection is also demonstrated for the first time, as well as the nuanced balance he strikes between accurately representing the details of studied garments and intensely working wider areas of colour in the same painting. The article’s wider conclusion is that acknowledgement of the complexity and rigour of Soutine’s art – including his detailed depiction of his sitters’ clothing – has consistently been blocked by the image of Soutine as purely expressionistic, uncontrolled painter, an image that must be released if new analysis of his work, such as that undertaken in this article, is going to take place.

Citation

Franklin, L. (2018). Untitled: Women’s clothing and ageing femininity in the portraits of Chaim Soutine. Clothing Cultures, 5(3), 315-332. https://doi.org/10.1386/cc.5.3.315_1

Journal Article Type Article
Acceptance Date Feb 1, 2018
Publication Date Dec 1, 2018
Deposit Date Feb 26, 2020
Print ISSN 2050-0742
Publisher Intellect
Peer Reviewed Peer Reviewed
Volume 5
Issue 3
Pages 315-332
DOI https://doi.org/10.1386/cc.5.3.315_1
Keywords Chaim Soutine, portraiture, women, clothes, ageing, femininity
Public URL https://uwe-repository.worktribe.com/output/5485060

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