Shocking Paris: Soutine, Chagall and the Outsiders of Montparnasse Hardcover – April 14, 2015

A fascinating and important story about these artists and an extremely well told one. I was impressed with the very thoughtful and thorough research but was even more impressed with the author's clear and very engaging style. I found I couldn't put it down! I downloaded, started and finished it while on a 2 week trip to Paris. The book inspired more than one visit to Musee de l'Orangerie to see the works up close and a long walk around Montparnasse. Well done Mr. Meisler - thank you!

Shocking Paris is about the foreign-born immigrant painters in Paris in the 1920s and 1930s. ‘Most came from the Russian empire, almost all were Jewish, and they made an impact on the history of art before most Parisians realized they were there.’ These include Amedeo Modigliani, Marc Chagall, Chaim Soutine, and Jules Pascin. The area was Montparnasse in Paris.Not much is known about Soutine, because he was so secretive – even his partner of three-years, Gerda Groth, had not seen his work. Although Marie-Berthe Aurenche who moved into Soutine’s apartment in 1940 did see his work, she thought his portrait of her was ugly. Chagall, on the other hand, was more outgoing. Chagall (1887-1985) had written his own memoir at the age of 35 and was a prolific letter-writer.Meisler also writes of the impact of World War I and World War II, which affected the lives of the French, and the foreign artists. Continually nervous and in fear of the German Gestapo, and the French police, took a toll on Soutine’s health, already an intense painter with bouts of depression. After the war, the tight community of foreign artists disbanded and were not a large presence in Paris again.While the author sub-titles the book ‘Soutine, Chagall and the Outsiders of Montparnasse’ there is a heavy concentration on Chaim Soutine, even though Marc Chagnall lived for another 40 years. The author has ‘ties’ to Soutine, although is not related. Nevertheless, the book brings to light the lives of the three greats of the time – Soutine, Modigliani, and Chagall – particularly the short lives of the first two, and their influences and muses, set before and during the Second World War. It’s an interesting read.

While mostly fixed on Chaim Soutine, which gives us our context, this book well renders the artists of the School of Paris and helps us understand their beginnings as well as their ends. Beautifully written.

Lots of information about the artist Chaim Soutine and other Jewish immigrant artists of the "School of Paris" in the Montparnasse in the early 20th century. The center of artistic energy in Paris has moved from Montmartre to Montparnasse. Anti-Semitic sentiment is growing in France and Germany as these artists rise. Fernand Leger, Blaise Cendrars, Modigliani, Marc Chagall, Jacques Lipchitz, Diego Rivera, and Tsuguharu Foujita, Maurice Utrillo, Jules Pascin, and Madeleine Castaing figure largely in the narrative. Guillaume Apollinaire, born Wilhelm Kostrowitsky, was a lively part of the Montparnasse art scene. "Chagall described the roundish Apollinaire as a 'gentle Zeus' who 'carried his stomach like a volume of collected works.'" During these years, 300-year-old paintings were cheaper than new blank canvases, so Soutine bought lots of them and cleaned them to use as painting surfaces for his own paintings. He liked painting on "something smooth...I like my brush to slide." Critic Robert Hughes once described a painting of Soutine's as a glorious heap of chicken guts. This book is well-researched and documented.

"Shocking Paris" focuses on several artists who worked in the Montparnasse district of Paris in the early part of the 20th century. A generation younger than the impressionists, they tended to be Jewish emigres from both Russia itself and the Czarist-controlled "Russian Pale" satellites of Lithuania, Belarus, and Poland, although one prominent member of their circle was the Italian Jew Amedeo Modigliani. As the subtitle indicates, the book devotes its greatest attention to Chaim Soutine and Marc Chagall.Initially many of the impoverished painters who took up residence in Montparnasse were sustained by communal living arrangements at a building called La Ruche ("beehive") named after its unique architectural style. Then, as they established themselves, dealers and angels provided living expenses, until several gained wide fame. And an important boost to that initial fame came at the hands of the wealthy Dr. Albert Barnes of Philadelphia. Buying nearly 60 paintings by Soutine and other canvases as well, he catapulted the Montparnasse artists to international attention. However, their work at first elicited a negative reaction from professional critics in the United States, and this explains a lot about the limited access that Barnes would subsequently grant to his collection. In the book's concluding chapters, the drama increases further as the years leading up to and including World War II endangered the sometimes poorly-assimilated Jewish painters.

I'm an artist myself, also an immigrant, from former Soviet union (ukraine), I'm Jewish, ettc. Reading this book I had a great curiosity about Soutine. The book forms him as a full character who can be admired, or his choices are questioned. He is filled with self doubt yet greately driven to produce what he was born to create. There seems to be a lot of verity to what's written & I tend to agree with many conclusions. There are incredible details which are inserted into the text about Soutine, or Chagall, Soutine's art dealer, Soutine's & other Russian - born Jewish artists lives, which makes this book very interesting. The book goes from macro of the Paris school of painting, social & political climate & their characters, to micro in analyzing each character individually. I can write more, but one should really read the text to retreave their pleasure & knowledge from it.

I enjoyed this book very much. It is well written and deals with one of my favourite artists, Chïam Soutine. If you are interested in the Parisian scene in the early part of the 20th Century and between the two World Wars, this book will be an interesting read for you.

amazing book!

The content is a fascinatin history, but it is poorly written. It has no overarching theme ; chapters do not segue from one to the next. It reads more as a series of articles written over some years than as a comprehensive understanding of the School of Paris and its principals.