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If I could rate 3.5 I would. The amount of information in this book regarding Soutine & the School of Paris is prodigious; however the repetition of documented facts (Modigliani's cafe antics, Soutine's Russian accented French) simply became annoying. The writing style seemed at times to be distracted, adding bits and pieces as if just recalled. However, the look at bohemian life in Montparnasse gave a very good impression of what it was like to be an emigre artist trying to "make it". Perhaps a larger issue for these emigres became the constant fear of the French police and the German Gestapo and how it shaped their lives and ultimately their art. As the "unknown" of the title, Soutine was the epitome of the tortured artist; the one who author Meisler calls one of the most influential artists of the twentieth century. Shocking Paris is a good start to study the School of Paris.

Not just the world of art but the passions and politics of patrons and governments are present in Shocking Paris, The Outsiders of Montpernasse. The artists Chagall, Modigliani, Pascin, and Soutine were outsiders but were central to what was going on in Paris between the World Wars. Their nationality, their religion, and their circle of friendships were not in the mainstream of Paris. Shocking Paris does a good job of showing the business side of art. The patrons and the galleries and the press all heavily determined who was inside and who was outside. The book opens the discussion beyond the art and the artist to include that wider world.

Being a huge Chagall fan, I was excited about getting to review this book. I have seen many of his works in the US and in Europe. Soutine, however, was completely unknown to me. Meisler chronicles the life and times of the artists of Paris and the huge impact that anti-Semitism made on those artists.

Except for a fair amount of repetition, Meisler writes a good art history book, lacking almost all of the artwork. I spent a great deal of time going back and forth from the book to Google which was very distracting. I blame the editors here. Meisler did his home work, they needed to theirs.