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Lot Essay
The name Modigliani has become synonymous with the Ecole de Paris and cultural life in Montparnasse in the early part of the twentieth century. Born in Leghorn, Italy, into a prominent Sephardic family, Modigliani studied in Florence and Venice before leaving for Paris in 1906. He resided in Montmartre, where he came into contact with the artists of the legendary Bateau Lavoir before moving on to the newer quarter of Montparnasse in 1909. Around 1916, he made the acquaintance of the art dealer Paul Guillaume and celebrated his first one-man exhibition at the Berthe Weill Gallery the following year.
The Jewish artists of Montparnasse often gathered at the Café de la Rotonde, on the corner of the newly opened boulevard Raspail and the boulevard du Montparnasse. In addition to Chaim Soutine, Marc Chagall, Chana Orloff, Ossip Zadkine, Moïse Kisling, Jules Pascin and Jacques Lipchitz, the café was also frequented by non-Jewish artists, such as Pablo Picasso, André Salmon, Diego Rivera, Max Jacob, Maurice de Vlaminck and Fernand Léger. These luminaries of the circle of Montparnasse comprised Modigliani's intimate circle of friends.
Modigliani's portraits form a kind of visual history of Left Bank culture dating back to the war years. His sitters included: Max Jacob; the critic and art dealer Adolphe Basler; Paul Guillaume; Léon Indenbaum; the sculptor Chana Orloff; the painter Pincus Krémègne; Henri Laurens; Constantin Brancusi, with whom he worked in 1911-1912; Diego Rivera; Frank Haviland Burty; Pablo Picasso; Jacques Lipchitz, Moïse Kisling; and the photographer Dilewski.
James Thrall Soby admirably described the impact of Modigliani's portraiture, "In his intensity of individual characterization, Modigliani holds a fairly solitary place in his epoch. One senses in his finest pictures a unique and forceful impact from the sitter, an atmosphere of special circumstance, not to recur. On the contrary, he solved repeatedly one of modern portraiture's most difficult problems: how to express objective truth in terms of the artist's private compulsion. The vigor of his style burns away over-localized fact. Indeed, his figures at times have the fascination of ventriloquists' dummies. They are believable and wholly in character, yet they would be limp and unimaginable without his guiding animation" (J.T. Soby, Modigliani: Paintings, Drawings, Sculpture, New York, 1951, p. 10).
Despite his celebrity among the artists and poets of Montparnasse and the admiration of his circle of friends for his talent, great physical beauty and generosity, Modigliani remained a marginal figure, impoverished and little-known outside his immediate group. His health, which had always been precarious (he was diagnosed with tuberculosis in his youth), was aggravated by the consumption of alcohol, ether and hashish. It was only after his untimely death at the age of thirty-six that Modigliani's work began to garner wide critical acclaim in France and abroad.
The Jewish artists of Montparnasse often gathered at the Café de la Rotonde, on the corner of the newly opened boulevard Raspail and the boulevard du Montparnasse. In addition to Chaim Soutine, Marc Chagall, Chana Orloff, Ossip Zadkine, Moïse Kisling, Jules Pascin and Jacques Lipchitz, the café was also frequented by non-Jewish artists, such as Pablo Picasso, André Salmon, Diego Rivera, Max Jacob, Maurice de Vlaminck and Fernand Léger. These luminaries of the circle of Montparnasse comprised Modigliani's intimate circle of friends.
Modigliani's portraits form a kind of visual history of Left Bank culture dating back to the war years. His sitters included: Max Jacob; the critic and art dealer Adolphe Basler; Paul Guillaume; Léon Indenbaum; the sculptor Chana Orloff; the painter Pincus Krémègne; Henri Laurens; Constantin Brancusi, with whom he worked in 1911-1912; Diego Rivera; Frank Haviland Burty; Pablo Picasso; Jacques Lipchitz, Moïse Kisling; and the photographer Dilewski.
James Thrall Soby admirably described the impact of Modigliani's portraiture, "In his intensity of individual characterization, Modigliani holds a fairly solitary place in his epoch. One senses in his finest pictures a unique and forceful impact from the sitter, an atmosphere of special circumstance, not to recur. On the contrary, he solved repeatedly one of modern portraiture's most difficult problems: how to express objective truth in terms of the artist's private compulsion. The vigor of his style burns away over-localized fact. Indeed, his figures at times have the fascination of ventriloquists' dummies. They are believable and wholly in character, yet they would be limp and unimaginable without his guiding animation" (J.T. Soby, Modigliani: Paintings, Drawings, Sculpture, New York, 1951, p. 10).
Despite his celebrity among the artists and poets of Montparnasse and the admiration of his circle of friends for his talent, great physical beauty and generosity, Modigliani remained a marginal figure, impoverished and little-known outside his immediate group. His health, which had always been precarious (he was diagnosed with tuberculosis in his youth), was aggravated by the consumption of alcohol, ether and hashish. It was only after his untimely death at the age of thirty-six that Modigliani's work began to garner wide critical acclaim in France and abroad.