Pocket Guide -> Media -> Oil on canvas -> Melanie, the Schoolteacher
Melanie, the Schoolteacher
by Chaim Soutine · Lithuanian, 1893 - 1943
| Creation Date: | circa 1922 |
| Media & Support: | Oil on canvas |
| Dimensions: | 32 1/8 x 18 1/8 inches |
| Credit: | Gift of Howard D. and Babette L. Sirak, the Donors to the Campaign for Enduring Excellence, and the Derby Fund |
Chaim Soutine painted many portraits, usually of people he did not know or knew only slightly. Some are anonymous; others are identifiable by type or uniform (pastry cooks, hotel pageboys, waiters, choir- boys). Melanie’s identity is not known, except that she was a schoolteacher. Nevertheless, she faces the viewer as an individual, composed and self-possessed, despite the exaggerations and dislocations of her facial features, hands, and other body parts. As with other portraits by Soutine, Melanie, the Schoolteacher has an elliptical composition, emphasized here by the strong red outline of the chair.
