Chaim Soutine’s identity was never integral to his art, even as a Jew whose death Nazis caused. Artists in Gaza, Syria and Ukraine share his universality.

Photo: Louisiana Museum of Modern Art Humlebaek, Denmark In 1910, Chaïm Soutine (1893-1943), in the shtetl of Smilavičy, in present-day Belarus, asked a fellow villager to pose for a portrait.