Hanging Turkey, ca. 1925

Between 1923 and 1925, Soutine produced twenty-two paintings of dead fowl. Almost all present a close-up view of a single bird, set into shallow space and located in the center of the composition. Finding models for this project proved challenging. While staying at Le Blanc on the Creuse River, Soutine’s friend Paulette Jourdain would walk to neighboring farms to find birds for him to paint. Initially, the farmers pointed her in the direction of those that would be best for cooking. As she recalled, “After awhile I would explain, ‘It’s not for the eating . . . it’s for the color.' . . . and the farmers ended up understanding the work of the painter and were very nice to him.”