Steve Stern

The book that sparked my interest in Soutine—beyond the paintings themselves—was Stanley Meisler’s marvelous Shocking Paris, which details the history of the School of Paris and its more outstanding members. My gratitude to that book for revealing a world. For Modigliani’s picaresque exploits there was Jeffrey Meyers’ Modigliani: A Life, and for the very rich background of the period, Dan Franck’s Bohemian Paris and Michael Marrus and Robert Paxton’s Vichy France and the Jews. A shout-out to those who found the artist before me: Rick Mullin’s book-length narrative poem Soutine, and Ed Ifkovic’s novel Soutine in Exile.