Choir Boy
Chaïm Soutine (French, 1893-1943)
Choir Boy, 1925
Oil on canvas
35.6 x 27.9 cm. (14 x 11 in.)
Signed lower right: Soutine
Provenance
Monsieur Reichenbach, Paris; [sold to Katia Granoff (1895–1989), 18 June 1951]. Henry Pearlman, by June 1957; Henry and Rose Pearlman Foundation, by 1959.
Critical Perspective
Soutine made several paintings of choir boys, a nontraditional subject that draws attention to a lesser participant in the Roman Catholic liturgy. This boy soprano is the youngest of Soutine’s choristers, but he, too, seems to understand the importance of the words and music in the celebration of the mass.