amedeo-modigliani.paintings.nameAmedeo Modigliani biography

[HOME] site map - email Jacques Lipchitz and wife Amedeo Modigliani was born in Livorno, Italy on July 12th, 1884 as the fourth son of Eugénie Garsin and Flaminio Modigliani. Both the Garsins and the Modiglianis descended from the Sephardic jews that were expelled from Spain and Portugal in 1492, the survivors seeking refuge in various European countries. In the 19th century the Jewish community in Italy lived in freedom and prosperity, many of them doing business as merchants across the Mediterranean. Eugénie Garsin (Modigliani’s mother) grew up in Marseille, France and at the age of 15 is married to Flaminio, whose family is from a village near Rome, called Modigliani, but later moves to Livorno, in the Italian province Tuscany. Tuscany is famous for it’s literature (Dante, Boccaccio), which may be why the mature Amedeo Modigliani would always seek the company of writers and poets. Although much of the art of Modigliani is inspired by his adult life in France, his motivation can usually be traced back to his youth in Italy. "Cara Italia" (beloved Italy) were his last words when he died in 1920. Portrait of Lunia Czechowska Initially, Amedeo Modigliani’s father is a successful merchant and owner of a real estate agency, but goes bankrupt and is in debt when Amedeo is born. Because of mining related business, Flaminio Modigliani (Amedeo’s father) spends most of his time on the island Sardinia and the rest of the family goes to live with the parents of Amedeo’s mother. There Amedeo develops a particularly good relationship with his grandfather Isaac, who spoke four languages and had an interest in philosophy. Amedeo’s philosophical interest is attributed to his contact with his grandfather. In spite of the bad financial situation of Amedeo’s father, and probably with the help of the affluent parents of Amedeo’s mother, the Modigliani children get a good education, resulting in the first child Emmanuel becoming a lawyer and the third child Umberto a mining engineer. The second child, Margherita continues to live with her parents and will adopt Jeanne Modigliani, Amedeo’s daughter. Amedeo is also well educated and gets familiar with poetry and literature, from Dante to Nietsche. His mother is ambivalent about his future: she suspects a career in art, but at the same time is hesitant about encouraging the "pursuit of this shadow". In 1898 Amedeo begins his drawing classes and starts to paint frantically, neglecting his school work. He gets painting lessons from painter and teacher Guglielmo Micheli (1866-1926) in Livorno. Micheli is a "macchiaiolo" of the second generation, macchiaiolo is derived from "macchia" (stain) and refers to an Italian style of painting that is related to impressionism. Brunette, 1918 During his teens Modigliani gets seriously ill several times, from pleuritis to typhus and tuberculosis. His reckless disposition begins to show when, in spite of his weak lungs, he starts to use hashish. Amedeo Modigliani "has the manners of a spoilt child", as his mother said and during his late teens he begins to develop a decadent lifestyle. Due to his tuberculosis, Amedeo has to interrupt his lessons with Micheli in 1901 and his mother takes him on a trip through the South of Italy, visiting the museums in many different cities, where he develops an interest in sculpture. On his return to Livorno, he heads for the local marble quarry to create his first sculptures. In 1902 Modigliani enrolls in the Florence School of Nude Studies, where his teacher is Giovanni Fatori (1828-1905). Modigliani already knew Fatori from the visits the latter had paid to the workshop of his former student Micheli, when Modigliani was present as a student. Fatori was one of the main first generation macchiaioli. In 1903 Modigliani moves to Venice where he joins the Venice School of Nude Studies. In Venice Modigliani frequents the nightlife of "disreputable neighborhoods" and is recruited by an Italian nobleman to join occult sessions in the company of young girls and under the influence of soft drugs. In a letter to his friend Oscar Ghiglia (a fellow student at Micheli’s workshop) he writes: Portrait of Marevna, 1919 ....The man that cannot leave behind everything that is old and rotten is not a man, but a bourgeois. You suffer, you are right, but can’t suffering serve to find yourself and to make your dream stronger than your desire?......always let your aesthetic needs prevail over your social obligations. Portrait of Max Jacob This quote doesn’t only show the spirit of the times at the beginning of the 20th century, which was an era of innovation and loss of belief in old values, but also testifies of the romantic energy and the sense of sacrifice of the young men of his generation. Some people learn to combine this energy with a more practical attitude, or at least survive their romantic phase. Alas this was not to be for Amedeo Modigliani, who would always remain a romantic at his own expense, as we will see. Now with plenty of Venice nightlife experience under his belt, Amedeo is "ready for Paris", where he goes in 1906. There he lives at several different address, among which Le Bateau-Lavoir, a block in Montmarte and so called because it resembles a laundry boat. At Le Bateau he meets Picasso, Braque and poet Max Jacob who would become his best friend. In fact, much of the European artistic avant garde was then assembled in Paris, leading to a unique artistic cross-fertilization which formed modern art as we know it today and in which Amedeo Modigliani played a crucial role. The main influences on Modigliani would be the work of: Portrait of Chaim Soutine Toulouse-Lautrec Toulouse-Lautrec is most famous for his drawing and the way the contours would be suggestive and completely define his subject. This approach is actually also in line with the Italian tradition and to Modigliani the work of Toulouse-Lautrec must have seemed as a contemporary confirmation of artistic principles he was already familiar with. Cézanne Nearly every avant garde artist in Paris would refer to Cézanne for the way he had made the first moves in the direction of abstract art by reducing forms to elementary geometric shapes (cubes, spheres, cylinders etc.) and in the way he would flatten his images. Brancusi The sculpture of Rumanian artist Brancusi would re-ignite Modigliani’s love of sculpture and would greatly influence the way he would depict the human figure. Portrait of Hanka Zborowska European classical art Italy possesses a massive collection of European art from all ages, much of which Modigliani was familiar with, in particular the Byzantine cariatides. In spite of his desire to "leave behind everything that is old and rotten", Modigliani would remain faithful to his classicist roots, resulting in a style that is a remarkable mix of abstract art and classicism. Non-European art Modigliani was greatly influenced by African art, to which many of his deformations of the human figure are due, most notably the elongation of faces. He was also interested in Cambodian (Khmer) sculpture. Pablo Picasso Modigliani had a deep respect for Picasso as an artist. He used some aspects of Picasso’s cubism , and the way Picasso would depict his artistic friends during his blue period would remain one of the main themes in Modigliani’s own work. When Picasso lost a close friend, he expressed his grief in a series of paintings, which besides genuine expressions of mourning, also contain an element of (post-)adolescent pathos and are in a sense a celebration of lifestyle. While artistically much more mature than Picasso’s blue period, Modigliani’s paintings of his art-friends lack Picasso’s motivation (the suicide of his friend) and rather than a real life tragedy, they express the discontentment and boredom of a group of young bohemians. They do however, reveal Modigliani’s unique artistic temperament, which we will get to later. Jeanne Hébuterne with straw hat More than anything, Modigliani...