SHARING WITH ME

André Derain (1880-1954: French)  is very ambiguous for me. Some of his work I like immensely and then other paintings I compare with Paul Cezanne, Picasso, Matisse and even Pissaro  or Signac and Seurat. . As you will see in the photos I took, that he has a very strange stick and glue style. He never wanted to belong to a movement so changed his way of painting frequently. On the other hand he was a founding member of Fauvism and worked closely with Maurice de Vlaminck and Matisse. In actual fact it was Matisse who helped to convince Derain’s family to let him pursue his career in painting. There is so much of his work looks vaguely familiar. I tried only to take photos of what really seemed to stand out (for me) and work which was not influenced too much by other artists This is where he began... A House in Chatou - 1900 Still Life - around 1904 Nude in front of a miror - 1901 French Republic : Liberty, Equality  Fraternity 1903-05 Chatou - André ...

Yesterday’s Modigliani had been a real eye opener. So what would the exhibition with Soutine’s work bring today. Many of us relate to Soutine through his paintings of carcass. He once horrified his neighbours by keeping an animal carcass in his studio so that he could paint it (Carcass of Beef). The stench drove them to send for the police, whom Soutine promptly lectured on the relative importance of art over hygiene. There's a story too  that Marc Chagall saw the blood from the carcass leak out onto the corridor outside Soutine's room, and rushed out screaming, "Someone has killed Soutine". Soutine painted 10 works in this series, which have since become his most well-known. His carcass paintings were inspired by Rembrandt's still life. Another story I learnt was he was a good friend of Modigliani - so it seemed right to visit this exhibition today.  Chaïm Soutine was Russian-French painter of Jewish origin(1893-1943) . He was also was one of the leading paint...