About This Artwork

Chaim Soutine
Lithuanian, 1883–1943

Dead Fowl, 1926

Oil on canvas
38 3/8 x 24 7/8 in. (97.5 x 63.3 cm)
Signed, l.l.: "Soutine"

Joseph Winterbotham Collection, 1937.167

© 2013 Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York / ADAGP, Paris

Like many artists associated with the School of Paris, Chaim Soutine moved to Montparnasse upon his 1913 arrival in Paris. He did not adhere to one particular artistic style, though he admired earlier artists like Rembrandt and Jean-Siméon Chardin and the more recent Fauves and Expressionists. In the mid-1920s, Soutine produced a group of still-life paintings primarily featuring hanging game and meat carcasses, subjects found in European art for centuries. Rather than depicting the dead animals as lifeless and limp, however, he often portrayed them as tragic figures; in works like Dead Fowl, the visceral quality of the thick, swirling paint suggests the bird’s writhing battle against death.

— Permanent collection label

Exhibition, Publication and Ownership Histories

Exhibition History

Palm Beach, Fla., Society of the Four Arts, 1944.
New York, Museum of Modern Art; traveled to Cleveland Museum of Art, 1950–1951, pp. 71 (ill.), 113.

Milwaukee, Jewish Community Center, Twentieth Century Art by Jewish Artists, January 30–February 20, 1955, cat. 59.

Chicago, Arts Club, 1956, cat. 46.

Paris, Orangerie des Tuileries, 1973, cat. 24, p. 6.

Munster, Westfälisches Landesmuseum; traveled to Tübingen. London, Lucerne, 1981–1982, no. 65 [English ed.].

Osaka, Municipal Museum of Art, Ecole de Paris, 1900–1930, August 12–December 10, 1989, cat. 137; traveled to Hiroshima Museum of Art; Yokohama, Sogo Museum of Art.

Chicago, The Arts Club, Seventy-Fifth Anniversary Exhibition 1916-1991, May 11-June 26, 1992.

Tokyo, ASAHI Shimbun, Masterworks of Modern Art from The Art Institute of Chicago; traveled to Nagaoka, Niigata Prefectural Museum of Modern Art, April 20, 1994–May 29, 1995; Nagoya, Aichi Prefectural Museum of Art, June 10–July 24, 1994: Yokohama Museum of Art, August 6 1994–September 25, 1994.

Publication History

E. Faure, Soutine, 1929, no. 14 (ill.).

Art Institute of Chicago, The Winterbotham Collection, 1947, p. 39.

J. Tworkov, Art News, November 1950, p. 33.

M. Breuning, Art Digest, November 15, 1950, p. 11.

Art Institute of Chicago, Paintings in The Art Institute of Chicago: A Catalogue of the Picture Collection (Art Institute, 1961), p. 421.

London, Tate Gallery, Edinburgh Arts Festival, 1963, p. 23.

R. Negri, Soutine, 1966, pl. 10–11.

R. L. Herbert, ed., “Soutine,” Encyclopedia of World Art, vol. 13, New York, Toronto, London, 1967, p. 179.

R. Negri, L’Arte Moderna, vol. 10, no. 87, 1967, p. 218.

H. Serouya, Soutine, 1967, pl. X–XI.

Jerusalem, Israel Museum, 1968, pl. 10–11.

Praeger Encyclopedia of Art, vol. 5, New York, Washington, London, 1971, p. 1899.

A. Werner, Jewish Chronicle Literary Supplement, December 1, 1972.

P. Courthion, Soutine, Peintre du déchirant, 1972, pp. 78, 79, 249A.

J. Warnod, Le Figaro, April 30, 1973.

A. Soutine, L’Amateur de L’Art, May–September 1973, p. 15.

G. Hilaire, Le Spectacle du Monde, September 1973, p. 101.

Grand Collection of World Art: Modigliani and the School of Paris, no. 24, Tokyo, 1975, p. 116, no. 23.

A. Werner, Chaim Soutine, 1977, p. 59, fig. 70.

Art Institute of Chicago, The Joseph Winterbotham Collection: A Living Tradition, pp. 11, 28, 63.

A. James Speyer and Courtney Graham Donnell, Twentieth Century European Paintings (University of Chicago Press, 1980), p. 70, cat. 4A1.

Maurice Tuchman, Esti Dunow, Klaus Perls, Chaim Soutine (1893–1943): Catalogue Raisonné Werkverzeichnis I (Benedikt Taschen Verlag, 1993), pp. 446, 448 (ill.), cat. 80, as Dead Fowl, La volaille morte, Totes Geflügel.

Ownership History

Valentine-Dudensing Gallery, New York, by May 18, 1937 [letter of May 18, 1937 to Mr. Winterbotham in curatorial file]; sold to the Art Institute, 1937.




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