Amedeo Clemente Modigliani was an Italian painter and sculptor of the École de Paris who worked mainly in France. He is known for portraits and nudes in a modern style characterised by a surreal elongation of faces, necks, and figures — works that were not received well during his lifetime, but later became much sought after. Modigliani was born and spent his youth in Italy, where he studied the art of antiquity and the Renaissance. In 1906, he moved to Paris, where he came into contact with such artists as Pablo Picasso and Constantin Brâncuși. By 1912, Modigliani was exhibiting highly stylised sculptures with Cubists of the Section d'Or group at the Salon d'Automne.
Paintings by Amedeo Modigliani
Nu couché (1917)
Nu couché (also known in English as Red Nude or Reclining Nude) is a 1917 oil on canvas painting by the Italian artist Amedeo Modigliani. It is one of his most widely reproduced and exhibited paintings.
The painting is one of a famous series of nudes that Modigliani painted in 1917 under the patronage of his Polish dealer Léopold Zborowski. It is believed to have been included in Modigliani's first and only art show in 1917, at the Galerie Berthe Weill, which was shut down by the police. Christie's lot notes for their November 2015 sale of the painting observed that this group of nudes by Modigliani served to reaffirm and reinvigorate the nude as a subject of modernist art.
Caryatid
A caryatid ( KAIR-ee-AT-id, KARR-; Ancient Greek: Καρυᾶτις, romanized: Karuâtis; pl. Καρυάτιδες, Karuátides) is a sculpted female figure serving as an architectural support taking the place of a column or a pillar supporting an entablature on her head. The Greek term karyatides literally means "maidens of Karyai", an ancient town on the Peloponnese. Karyai had a temple dedicated to the goddess Artemis in her aspect of Artemis Karyatis: "As Karyatis she rejoiced in the dances of the nut-tree village of Karyai, those Karyatides, who in their ecstatic round-dance carried on their heads baskets of live reeds, as if they were dancing plants".
An atlas or atlantid or telamon is a male version of a caryatid, i.e., a sculpted male statue serving as an architectural support.
Alice (painting) (1918)
Alice is a c.1918 oil on canvas painting by Amedeo Modigliani. It now hangs in the National Gallery of Denmark, in Copenhagen, to which it was donated in 1928.
Modigliani painted more than 300 portraits between 1915 and 1920. Alice is the portrait of a young girl seated, dressed in a blue Sunday dress with a gold cross upon her chest. She looks directly at the viewer with her large almond-shaped eyes. Her brown hair frames her face and falls onto her dress. The girl's face is stylized as an African mask. The canvas is simple, on a color leve, since the color scheme varies from nuances of blue to terracotta, creating a contrast that gives life to the painting without disturbing the overall impression of a classical silence and harmony.
Nude Sitting on a Divan (1917)
Nude Sitting on a Divan (The Beautiful Roman Woman) is an oil on canvas painting by Italian artist Amedeo Modigliani depicting a partially draped woman seated with crossed legs against a warm red background. The work was one of a series of nudes painted by Modigliani in 1917 that created a sensation when exhibited in Paris that year. On November 2, 2010, the painting sold at a New York auction for $68.9 million, a record price for an artwork by Modigliani.
The several dozen nudes Modigliani painted between 1916 and 1919 constitute many of his best-known works. Simultaneously abstracted and erotically detailed, they exhibit a formal grace referencing nude figures of the Italian Renaissance while at the same time objectifying their subjects' sexuality; they "exemplify his position between tradition and modernism". The nudes of this period are "displayed boldly, with only the faintest suggestion of setting.... neither demure nor provocative, they are depicted with a degree of objectivity. Yet the uniformly thick, rough application of paint— as if applied by a sculptor's hand— is more concerned with mass and the visceral perception of the female body than with titillation and the re-creation of translucent, tactile flesh".
Seated Nude (1916) (1916)
Seated Nude is a 1916 oil on canvas painting by Amedeo Modigliani, now in the Courtauld Gallery. The painting is one of a famous series of nudes that Modigliani painted between 1916 and 1918, which include many of his most famous works. Its model was Beatrice Hastings, then the artist's lover.
Seated Nude (1917) (1917)
Seated Nude is a 1917 painting by Amedeo Modigliani, now in the Royal Museum of Fine Arts, Antwerp.
Seated Nude (1918) (1918)
Seated Nude is an oil on canvas painting by Italian artist Amedeo Modigliani created in 1918. The painting is one of the dozens of nudes created by Modigliani between 1916 and 1919.
Seated Nude was painted in the time when the Futurists’ movement in Paris stopped painting traditional nudes, however Modigliani took the challenge to paint the nudes for the pure sense of painting. Simultaneously abstracted and erotically detailed, they exhibit a formal grace referencing nude figures of the Italian Renaissance while at the same time objectifying their subjects' sexuality; they "exemplify his position between tradition and modernism". The nudes of this period are "displayed boldly, with only the faintest suggestion of setting.... neither demure nor provocative, they are depicted with a degree of objectivity. Yet the uniformly thick, rough application of paint— as if applied by a sculptor's hand— is more concerned with mass and the visceral perception of the female body than with titillation and the re-creation of translucent, tactile flesh".
Portrait of the Painter Moisè Kisling (1915)
Portrait of the Painter Moisè Kisling is 1915 oil painting by Italian painter Amedeo Modigliani, a portrait of Modigliani's friend, the Polish Jew painter Moïse Kisling. The painting is the collection of Pinacoteca di Brera in Milan, Italy
This portrait of Kisling was probably made in 1915, after his return to Paris, having been discharged from the French Foreign Legion following war wounds. The painting shows clearly the influence of cubism.
The Little Peasant (Modigliani) (1918)
The Little Peasant is a 1918 oil painting of a youth by Amedeo Modigliani. It is held in Tate Modern, in London. The painting has a faint chromatism, a delicate color variation and harmony.
It was painted in Nice, based on a room where Modigliani also painted Jeanne Hébuterne.
Jacques and Berthe Lipchitz (1916)
Jacques and Berthe Lipchitz is a 1916 oil on canvas painting by Amedeo Modigliani. It depicts Modigliani's friend, the sculptor Jacques Lipchitz, standing alongside his seated wife Berthe.
Modigliani and Lipchitz had each moved to France at a young age, were both from Jewish backgrounds, and became close friends who frequented the same artistic circles in Paris. Despite their commonalities, there were marked differences: Lipchitz exemplified artistic industriousness while Modigliani was given to bohemian dissolution.
Portrait of Blaise Cendrars (1917)
Portrait of Blaise Cendrars is a 1917 oil on card painting by Amedeo Modigliani, showing the French writer Blaise Cendrars. Formerly part of the Riccardo Gualino collection, it is now in the Galleria Sabauda in Turin.
Reclining Nude (On the Left Side) (1917)
Reclining Nude (On the Left Side) (French: Nu couché (sur le côté gauche)) is a 1917 painting by Amedeo Modigliani. The painting was included in a 2017/2018 Tate Modern exhibition of Modigliani's works. The painting was sold by auction by Sotheby's in April 2018. Writing in The Guardian, British arts journalist Jonathan Jones compared it to Ingres' 1814 work Grande Odalisque.
The painting is currently valued at over $100 million and is considered to be one of the most famous portraits of women ever.