Old Woman (c. 1923–24): Art, History and Details

Old Woman (c. 1923–24) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection. The museum's creator attribution is Chaïm Soutine (Russian, 1893–1943).

The work and its context

The museum's open-access catalogue describes the work:

In the nearly 200 portraits Chaïm Soutine painted, he was remarkably consistent in his approach:he almost always painted solitary, unidentified models, seated in half- or three-quarter-length poses facing frontally with hands placed on the hips or folded in the lap, as seen here. The physical distortions—the woman’s large hands, arched green eyebrows, and pointed chin—executed with agitated, slashing brushstrokes heighten the portrait’s expressive qualities. The sitter here is remarkably similar to the figure in another Soutine portrait of a schoolteacher named Melanie at the Columbus Museum of Art.

Object facts

• Title: Old Woman
• Date: c. 1923–24
• Creator attribution: Chaïm Soutine (Russian, 1893–1943)
• Culture: Russia (worked in France), 20th century
• Type: Painting
• Technique: oil on canvas
• Dimensions: Framed: 88.9 x 78.7 x 8.6 cm (35 x 31 x 3 3/8 in.); Unframed: 65 x 54 cm (25 9/16 x 21 1/4 in.)
• Collection: Mod Euro - Painting 1800-1960
• Department: Modern European Painting and Sculpture
• Accession number: 1988.94

A detail from the museum

Roald Dahl, author of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, was inspired by Soutine's work for his short story "Skin."

Collection credit

Gift of the Mildred Andrews Fund

Further reading listed by the museum

• Courthion, Pierre. Soutine, Peintre Du déChirant. [Lausanne], [Paris], [Fribourg]: Edita, Denoël; [Distributeur exclusif pour la Suisse, Office du livre], 1972.
• Tuchman, Maurice, Esti Dunow, and Klaus Perls. Chaim Soutine (1893-1943): Catalogue Raisonné = Werkverzeichnis. Köln: Benedikt Taschen Verlag, 1993.
• Vial, Marie-Paule, Claire Bernardi, Musée de l’Orangerie, and Musée d’Orsay. Chaïm Soutine. Paris: Hazan: Musée d’Orsay, 2012.

View the collection record

See the museum's photographs and full catalogue entry. Catalogue text is reproduced from the Cleveland Museum of Art's open-access data, with HTML formatting removed. This object and its supplied image are designated CC0.