Soutine grew up in a small Jewish community in Lithuania where it was forbidden to draw or paint representational images. Against the wishes of his family, he enrolled at art school in 1910, and three years later settled in Paris. Soutine lived in poverty for many years until the American collector Dr Albert C. Barnes bought some of his works in 1923 (including the painting now in the Gallery's collection) and his name was made. Soutine painted landscapes, portraits and figure studies, using expressive brushstrokes and thickly applied paint.
A loosely affiliated group of artists working in Paris in the early years of the twentieth century up to the Second World War.
