Assistant English professor Mark Yakich sold his painting “Soutine As His Own Boy Baker” for $2,000, according to his Web site.

Yakich entered the painting with the title “Baker Boy” and won first place in a poster contest through Art Reach of Mid-Michigan in September of 2005.

The painting received attention when inquiries were made about the similarities between his piece and expressionist painter Chaim Soutine’s painting “Le patissier de Cagnes.”

Both paintings depict a young boy with large ears wearing a baker’s hat and holding a red cloth.

Though Yakich refused to comment about the sale, an extended review of updates made to markyakich.com shows the painting was sold between February and October of 2006.

Today the site displays a disclaimer with a picture of the painting, reading, “An homage to Chaim Soutine, Lucien Freud, Mad Magazine, self-portraiture and my mother.”

In the first story about Yakich’s winning, he told Central Michigan Life he created the piece in May of 2000 while visiting Brussels in Belgium. But he made no reference to Soutine as an influence of his work.

For reasons unknown, however, Yakich withdrew his painting from the contest on the day of the ceremony and forfeited the $500 prize.

He continues to refuse to comment to CM Life.

“Until you do some research about art and how it works, I have nothing to say to you,” he said in 2005.

Paying homage

Art is complicated, said Art Department chairman and professor Al Wildey.

“If we go back in art, often times artist made works that were an homage to an established artist and you would see that in the title,” Wildey said. “The idea of an homage is paying tribute to a previous master, trying to add something of your own to it, but acknowledging the source.”

Associate art professor Carolyn Loeb recently looked at the paintings posted on Yakich’s site and agreed that he was strongly influenced by Soutine, but thought the disclaimer sufficed.

“He’s being completely frank about what the relationship of his art is to Soutine’s art,” she said.

Wildey said the disclaimer demonstrates a reconsideration on Yakich’s part, but an explanation from the source would be preferable since withdrawing from the conversation seems dismissive.

“In this case, what I start to wonder is why the artist won’t talk about their conceptual or philosophical sort of grounding,” Wildey said. “As soon as there is even a hint of reluctance it makes one wonder, ‘why is this the case?’ And ‘do you understand what the message is that you’re sending to the persons making the inquiry?’”

Aside from the painting in question, Yakich’s Web site displays other paintings that resemble Soutine’s as well.

For example, Yakich’s “Nude Yellow,” on sale for $900, could be compared to Soutine’s 1933 “Female Nude.” His “Bishop or Old-Time Baseball Player” could be likened to Soutine’s 1928 “The Choir Boy,” while his “Nabokov’s Franz Bubendorf” is similar to Soutine’s 1917 “Self Portrait,” as well as others.

“Of course they look alike,” Yakich told CM Life in 2005 after the initial story. “They all look like Soutine. I should have mentioned it in my original story behind the painting – I just didn’t put it in there.”

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