Category: Documents

Chil Aronson was a journalis and art critic. The following biographical article, first published in Paris in 1963 in “Scenes et Visages de Montparnasse” offers a first-hand account of Mintchine’s life. It is interesting to note that among the many qualities he highlights, Chil Aronson see Mintchne as a herald of Social-Realism. Reading this article, one can only be touched by the words of the author, written more than 30 years after Mintchine’s passing.

Abraham Mintchine’s Tragic Fate

Mintchine was thirty years old when he left us. He is unforgettable and I often think of him. His thin and slender figure and his pale face always worried me. His atelier was in an old two-storied house in 83 rue de la Glaciere. The pitiful room where he lived was a sharp contrast to his bright paintings.

He invited me to his place to paint my portrait. At eight o’clock he was already standing by his easel painting spontaneously – seemingly in a trance. After I sat for him five times he was still unhappy with the result, and ripped the canvas to pieces. Then in twenty minutes he made a small portrait of me – a masterpiece.

The pitiful room where he lived was a sharp contrast to his bright paintings

It was a time of abject indigence, yet Mintchine did not stop painting even for a minute. Once, when he was utterly penniless, he asked me to sell one of his paintings, a beautiful still life. I asked 200 francs for it but could not find a buyer. Two years later he exhibited with two wonderful painters, Blond and Bart, at the Alice Manteau Gallery. Two young critics, who thought him a brilliant colorist, lavished unrestrained praise on him. In the wake of this success the Alice Manteau Gallery signed a year’s contract
with him and put on an exhibition of his works in Brussels. Mintchine’s greatest pleasure was painting, which he lived to enjoy for only a very few years.

He was born in 1898 in Kiev and worked for a goldsmith. During Petlyura’s persecutions he suffered from hunger and contracted tuberculosis, which eventually brought about his death at such an early age. His good friend, the well-known painter Andre Favory, said that when he saw Mintchine working from sunrise to sunset he thought that at the bottom of his heart Minchine must have known that his days were numbered.

In 1923 Mintchine left Russia, went to Berlin, and stayed there for two years. There he staged an exhibition of his works, that were in the Cubist style. From Berlin he went to Paris and won recognition from the talented members of the School of Paris.

As early as in the 20s, Mintchine was one of the heralds of Social-Realism

In the 1934 exhibition, alongside his typical portraits, wonderful works were displayed – sights of Paris. Solid, clear comprehensible paintings. How refined are the surfaces. He succeeded in creating a stirring unity, a pinkish harmony. And he displayed so much love to the working man in his works. I, who have seen so many of his outstanding paintings depicting porters and destitute people, believe that as early as in the 20s Mintchine was one of the heralds of Social-Realism, which was manifest in the Salon d’Automne in the 50s. The scenes featuring the laborers were executed in extraordinary pictorial means, and were full of light. Unfortunately, most of these paintings are in private collections, not only in Paris, but also in Belgium, the USA, Ireland and Switzerland. I would have liked to collect all of them and display them in an exhibition containing these great works.

What we have here is a remarkable colorist, a poet of nature, of life. He succeeded in intimately interlacing music with painting. How majestic is the combination between sky, sea and boats in his seascapes. What keen observation of reality, what innocent, naive observation, reflecting his outlook on the world. Mintchine liked especially pink and red shades which were often used for his colorful harmonies. Particularly beautiful are his still lifes. Their colors are soul-stirring and flooded with light. It is true that Mintchine liked to create harmonies in shades of red, but the greens in his landscapes and the fluid browns, yellows and whitish colors are intensive and deep.

Mintchine is a painter of life, a poet of the working people, of sunlit seascapes, of life in the harbors, with boats sailing in the horizon. He is a poet of youth, of blossoms. His friend, the painter Andre Favory said that his portrait painted by Mintchine illuminated his room as if it was an original Van Gogh.

Mintchine is a painter of life, a poet of the working people, of sunlit seascapes, of life in the harbors, with boats sailing in the horizon

In the last six years of his life Minrchine’ s career was utterly changed, and on one warm morning in 1931, in the village of St. Margaret, Mintchine sat painting in the field, in the landscape, when he felt faint and collapsed. Workers brought him to a small fishermen’s cafe, and when his wife arrived with the doctor, he was pronounced dead. In the last landscape he painted, the sky is especially red and the cypresses are upright as if they are offering a prayer.

Chil Aronson, Scenes et Visages de Montparnasse, Paris 1963