Located in Southampton, NY
This exquisite lithograph after Chaim Soutine (1893–1943), titled Le Coq (The Rooster), from the folio Soutine, I, Collection Pierre Levy, 1966, originates from the edition published by Fernand Mourlot, Paris, and printed by Mourlot Freres, Paris, on October 20, 1966. The work conveys the heightened emotional tension and expressive force characteristic of Soutines painterly vision, capturing in lithographic form the dynamic structure and psychological immediacy that define his mature still lifes.
Executed as a lithograph on velin d'Arches paper, this work measures 26 x 20 inches. Unsigned and unnumbered as issued. The edition exemplifies the technical mastery of the Mourlot atelier.
Artwork Details:
Artist: After Chaim Soutine (1893–1943)
Title: Le Coq (The Rooster), from the folio Soutine, I, Collection Pierre Levy
Medium: Lithograph on velin d'Arches paper
Dimensions: 26 x 20 inches
Inscription: Unsigned and unnumbered as issued
Date: 1966
Publisher: Fernand Mourlot, Paris
Printer: Mourlot Freres, Paris
Condition: Well preserved, consistent with age and medium
Provenance: From the folio Soutine, I, Collection Pierre Levy, 1966
Notes:
Excerpted from the folio (translated from French), This album, the first of a series dedicated to Mr. Pierre Levys collection, was printed in DL examples on Arches velin. Printing was finished on October 20, 1966 by Mourlot for lithographs of the canvases of Soutine, and by Fequet and Baudier for Waldemar Georges unpublished text. Fernand Mourlot, Paris 1966.
About the Publication:
Soutine, I, Collection Pierre Levy, published in 1966 by Fernand Mourlot, Paris, is the first album in the important series devoted to the Pierre Levy collection, one of the most significant private collections of twentieth century French painting. Conceived as a scholarly and visual record, the album was designed to present key works by Chaim Soutine in lithographic form at a time when renewed international interest in the artist was expanding. Created in collaboration with Mourlot Freres, the foremost lithographic atelier in France, the publication reflects the printers commitment to translating Soutines canvases into richly tonal lithographs that preserve the emotional intensity and structural drama of the originals. Issued in a single edition on Arches velin, the album stands as an essential document of postwar art publishing, illuminating the historical partnership between artist, collector, and master printer, and contributing to the larger historiography of modern French Expressionism and museum quality print albums of the mid twentieth century.
About the Artist:
Chaim Soutine (1893–1943) was a Belarus-born French Expressionist painter whose explosive brushwork, emotionally charged distortions, and uncompromising commitment to depicting the psychological intensity of human experience have secured his place as one of the most vital and transformative figures in twentieth century art, creating his legacy within the same revolutionary modernist environment defined by Pablo Picasso, Alexander Calder, Alberto Giacometti, Salvador Dali, Joan Miro, Wassily Kandinsky, Marcel Duchamp, and Man Ray; after leaving his impoverished childhood in Smilavichy and arriving in Paris in 1913, Soutine immersed himself in the School of Paris circle at La Ruche—an incubator of international avant garde talent—where he developed formative friendships with Amedeo Modigliani, Marc Chagall, Jules Pascin, and other pioneering artists whose daring approaches inspired him to push color, gesture, and form into new emotional territories. His portraits of cooks, choirboys, servants, and village residents; his tempestuous landscapes of Cagnes, Chartres, and Ceret; and his deeply visceral still lifes—most famously his monumental depictions of slaughtered carcasses—reveal a singular ability to transform ordinary subjects into raw, pulsing, almost metaphysical dramas, building on the influence of Rembrandt, Goya, Velazquez, and El Greco while departing radically from academic restraint. His paintings vibrate with psychological tension, their twisted perspectives, molten colors, and trembling outlines capturing an inner world marked by anxiety, longing, resilience, and profound empathy. Soutines originality profoundly shaped the evolution of modern painting: Francis Bacon cited him as one of his greatest influences, Willem de Kooning and the Abstract Expressionists admired his gestural ferocity, and later artists—including Frank Auerbach, Leon Kossoff, Lucian Freud, Jenny Saville, and Adrian Ghenie...
Category
1960s Modern James Henry Daugherty Art
