Carcass of Beef

Lithuanian artist Chaïm Soutine painted this Carcass of Beef around 1925, one of ten works in his series depicting slaughtered animals. Inspired by Rembrandt's Slaughtered Ox of 1655, Soutine gave the subject an intensely emotional Expressionist interpretation. Thick impasto and saturated reds cover the canvas in violent brushstrokes.

While living in La Ruche, an artists' residence in Paris, Soutine hauled an entire steer carcass to his studio. Over several weeks, he painted at least four canvases as the meat decomposed. When flies obscured the colors, he paid a model to sit and fan them away. Legend says Marc Chagall saw blood leaking from Soutine's room and rushed out screaming, thinking someone had been killed.

The process had personal significance for Soutine, raised in a household that strictly followed kosher laws. He once told a biographer about seeing a butcher cut a goose's throat as a child, a cry stuck in his throat. This painting hangs at the Buffalo AKG Art Museum, acquired in 1939.