Little known during his lifetime outside the small and distinct milieu of the Parisian avant-garde, Amedeo Modigliani is now recognised as one of the greatest painters of the early 20th century, whose paintings and sculptures command prices in the many millions.
Born in Livorno, Italy, in 1884 to respectable middle-class parents, Modigliani moved to Paris in 1906, drifting between Montparnasse and Montmartre, from shambolic studio to dishevelled room, living mainly in the cafés, selling drawings for a few francs or in exchange for a drink. Handsome, charismatic, talented, with a fondness for alcohol, hashish and women, Modigliani has in many ways become the archetype of the ‘wild thing’ Bohemian modern artist. This image has been burnished by the fact that, unlike friends and contemporaries such as Picasso and Brancusi, Modigliani had very little acclaim in his lifetime – just one solo exhibition of note, which nearly caused a riot due to the provocative nudes displayed in the window – but also because he died tragically young, in 1920, just as recognition finally beckoned.
Like Picasso, Modigliani was inspired by non-European art, in particular African sculpture, which he considered accessed an underlying ‘truth’ that had been lost to Western art. However he also held great affection for the ‘primitives’ of Italian Early Renaissance painting, especially Giotto, whom he’d studied in Florence as a student and there is plenty of Giotto’s touch in the strong outlines, simple forms and pared-back tonality of Modigliani’s painting.
He had arrived in Paris to become a sculptor, carving elongated heads, with elegant, linear features, from any block of stone he could beg, steal or borrow. With the coming of the Great War, though, he moved increasingly towards painting and drawing, although his style retained a sculptural clarity. He painted sensual but unidealized nudes, using local working-class girls, prostitutes and girlfriends as models – as well as portraits of his friends and fellow denizens of the demi monde. His style is defined by a bold, flowing line; long oval faces, and elongated bodies; almond-shaped eyes with no pupils, often coloured black or with a celadon green-blue, that somehow are the opposite of expressionless.
Around 1916, Modigliani met the Polish poet-turned-art dealer, Léopold Zborowski, perhaps the only man who could deal with the artist’s notorious temperament – one minute full of charm and humour, the next seized with rage, destroying works before prospective buyers’ eyes. It was ‘Zbo’ who tirelessly created the market for the artist’s work and is in most part responsible for his posthumous reputation, which began to soar almost immediately after his death.
Modigliani’s life and art continues to fascinate, not least as it can be applied to the later 20th century Hollywood trope of ‘live fast, die young and leave a beautiful corpse’. However, the artist’s biography shouldn’t overshadow his very real achievement, as one of the most innovative artists within a particularly innovative milieu, in Paris at the turn of the century, when the history of art was irrevocably altered.