Celebrating the 137th anniversary of Amedeo Modigliani’s birth on 12/7/1884

Born in Livorno, Italy, on 12 July 1884 Amedeo Modigliani worked as a painter and sculptor primarily in France. After spending his youth and initial artistic career between Tuscany and Venice, in 1906 Modigliani moved to Paris where he got in contact with artists of the caliber of Pablo Picasso and Constantin Brancusi. His initial artistic focus was on sculpture with the realisation of highly stylised portraits and full figures which were not much appreciated by his contemporaries but became popular only after he died. Of his vast artistic production over a relatively short period of time, only a portion is left because most of it was either destroyed by the artist, who considered it inferior, or disregarded by its initial owners,

From 1914 Modigliani started shifting his creative attention from sculpture to paining, bringing to this art form elements from his previous experience and from the artistic environment he was living in Paris. This generated altogether a very personal style and some immediately recognisable imagery that set him very much apart from his contemporaries. His sense of colour and shapes, quite influenced by Cézanne, and the elongated figures with stretched necks became his artistic trademark and a point of reference for future painters.

The portrait on the right is inspired by Jeanne Hébuterne, one of Modigliani’s favourite models and partner. She was an art student in Paris in the period immediately around the end of WWi. This portrait was probably painted in Paris, while Jeanne was pregnant with her daughter by Amedeo, who then was born in November 2018. The relationship between the two was very much opposed by her family and was probably the reason she took her own life just two days after the death of her partner due to tuberculosis.

Il contadinello is one of a small group of paintings that Modigliani made of young people sitting in his studio in Nice and is now exhibited at the Tate Modern in London. The artist inscribed the title of the work in the lower right part of the canvas, identifying the model as a ‘peasant boy’. However, there are some doubts about the accuracy of the title. The same model appears to appear in another painting entitled ‘The Young Apprentice’. Modigliani had long been influenced by the painter Paul Cézanne and this painting was probably inspired by the images of Cézanne’s field workers. Cézanne’s subjects were also placed in the center of the canvas and painted in primarily blue tones.

Below is the trailer of a feature movie inspired by the turbulent life of the painter and interpreted by Andy Garcia the title role.

My favourite painters

Visual art

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