The life of Italian artist Amedeo Modigliani was full of drama, passion, irony and tragedy—and a surprising amount of hard work. Despite his striking looks and unique talent, Modigliani did not enjoy much financial success and was always in need of cash, hence the constant need to produce sketches, paintings and sculpture. Beyond his money troubles, Modigliani lived wildly and was inclined to excesses with alcohol, hashish and women. Plagued by tuberculosis in his youth, Modigliani almost seemed to want to deny the fact that he suffered from health issues and instead hoped to hasten his ultimate demise.
Handsome and impetuously charming, Modigliani took up residence in the Montparnasse section of Paris around 1909. At this time, Montparnasse was the home of major art stars-to-be like Pablo Picasso and Diego Rivera, both of whom were friends with Modigliani and inspired Modigliani to paint their portraits. Modigliani is famed for his elongated, richly colored female nude studies, but he was also quite skilled at portraiture and painted a variety of people, ranging from his friends, lovers, and patrons to pretty girls selling vegetables or whoever happened to catch his eye.
Amedeo and Pablo
When Modigliani first encountered Pablo Picasso in Montparnasse, he initially felt that Picasso ought to dress better. Modigliani had come from a distinguished Italian-Jewish family and prided himself on his refined demeanor, although after moving to Montparnasse Modigliani soon rejected such restrictive bourgeois tendencies. His art became more expressive and intense and his own dress and actions more bohemian in nature.
Modigliani painted more than one portrait of Picasso, yet each captures the youthful force and power of the latter artist at the time. The word SAVOIR can be read in Modigliani’s 1915 depiction of Picasso, most likely representing Modigliani's ambiguous tribute to Picasso’s savvy approach toward art and life.
Diego Rivera
Diego Rivera met Modigliani while he was studying in Paris and both he and Modigliani were living in La Ruche, a hive-shaped building buzzing with artists during its pre-World War I heyday. Like Modigliani, the Mexican Rivera had Jewish ancestry and came from a distinguished background, and like Modigliani, Rivera would ultimately move away from his classical and academic training to forge his own distinct artistic style.
Modigliani’s 1914 portrait of Rivera shows a benevolent Diego, gazing calmly yet slyly ahead with a soft smile on his lips. The background is chaotic but the lines of the central figure are smooth and circular, perhaps suggesting Rivera’s natural confidence and sense of self amid the exciting chaos of Montparnasse.
Chaim Soutine
Another resident of La Ruche and artist of Jewish descent was Belarus-born Chaim Soutine, best known for his paintings of rotting meat. Modigliani was unusually taken with Soutine’s image and painted various portraits of him—including one version on the front door of the home of art dealer Leopold Zborowski. Just why Modigliani felt compelled to paint the downtrodden Soutine so often is debatable, though their shared poverty and daily creative struggles were surely a factor.
One of Modigliani’s 1916 Soutine portraits gives a kind of youthfully melancholic impression of the artist, who was then only twenty-three. Soutine sits complacently, yet his eyes stare off into the distance and his attention seems elsewhere. The palette ranges from dark woody browns to sepia and flesh tones, and the backdrop is somber and realistic, unlike the more abstract backgrounds in Modigliani’s portraits of Picasso and Rivera.
Jeanne Hébuterne
Modigliani painted many women—clothed and unclothed—but his portraits of Jeanne Hébuterne, the artist’s last love and mother of his child, are among his most compelling. Jeanne had initially hoped to be a painter herself, but her career was soon overwhelmed by her love for Modigliani, whom she met in Paris in 1917.
Shy yet passionate, the then-nineteen year old Jeanne was devoted to the tormented artist and did her best to help him through his alcoholic and otherwise intensities. She disgusted her parents by moving in with Amedeo, an arrangement made even more objectionable by the fact that Jeanne’s Catholic parents disapproved of Modigliani’s Jewish heritage. Jeanne gave birth to a daughter named Jeanne or Giovanna in late 1918, and she posed for Modigliani during her first pregnancy (Jeanne Sitting), like she would pose for several other portraits.
Jeanne Sitting offers a serene view of this exceptional young woman, just as other portraits feature Jeanne sitting patiently in white chemises, red shawls or yellow sweaters and hats, her hair up or loose about her shoulders. A straightforward 1919 view, however, is especially intriguing because it shows more of the character, intelligence and force of personality that made Jeanne so important to Modigliani.
By January of 1920, Modigliani was gravely ill with tubercular meningitis and he died soon after at the age of thirty-five. Jeanne was with him at the end, and distraught, pregnant and unable to carry on alone, she committed suicide at her parents’ house two days later. Her unborn baby died as well, even though Jeanne was only weeks from the end of her term.
Sources
- Modigliani: A Life – Jeffrey Meyers (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2006)
- Who is Modi? – Albright Knox Gallery
