Amadeo Modigliani produced such a distinctive work that people wonder how - in Paris at the start of the twentieth century - he remained untouched by either Cubism or Fauvism. Insted of fracturing his image or painting in heightened colour, he took a decidedly representational apprach.
Modiagliani never had any interest in the abstract and found no affinity with Picasso or Matisse. After befriending the Romanina sculptor Brancusi, he moved from Montmartre to Montparnasse, where Brancusi had a studio. Modigliani, as an Italina, favoured the stone-carving tradition, and the rebuilding of Montparnasse meant he could beg plenty of limestone from building sites. he establsihed his elongated style with a series of elegant head that he exhibited in the 1912 Salon d'Automne.
Two years later, Modigliani abandoned sculpture on health grounds. His paintings consist almost entirely of portraits and nudes. The portraits of his friends are stylized but quite recognizable. The nudes were models, paid for by his dealer Zborowski, who often supplied paint and canvas to. The slender, mannered figures became Modigliani's trademark; the oval head with the linear features, inclined on a long neck, with the body quickly brushed in ochre.
Modigliani was destroying himself with drugs and alcohol, but still attractive, as one female sitter described: "...with black tousled hair and the most beautiful hot, dark eyes... his red silk scarf carelessly knotted around his neck." He was married with a small daughter, but shockingly, two days after his untimely death, his pregnant widow Jeanne committed suicide by leaping from a fifth-door window.
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