Chaïm Soutine, Still Life with Rayfish
The Cleveland Museum of Art, Gift of the Hanna Fund, 1951.357 · The Cleveland Museum of Art, Open Access (CC0)View original →
Chaïm Soutine

Still Life with Rayfish

1923

Current Collection

Cleveland Museum of Art

Cleveland, United States

Medium
oil on canvas
Dimensions
80.5 × 64.5 cm
Status
In Museum Collection
Collect24 Art ID
C24-1102447

The mutilated ray fish in this painting is strung across the top of the canvas, as if tortured or crucified, as its internal organs spill forth. The fish seems to express human anguish, transforming it into a powerful metaphor for suffering. Below the fish is a kettle that seems to twist away from the fish. Chaïm Soutine frequently depicted animal carcasses in his paintings, highlighting their vulnerability and the violence of their deaths. Such paintings may allude to his own despair, from his youth as the 10th of 11 children of parents in poverty in a small Orthodox Jewish community in what…

Provenance

The Cleveland Museum of Art, Gift of the Hanna Fund, 1951.357

Registry history

  • 1923 — Recorded in the collection of Cleveland Museum of Art

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