LIFE Photo Collection
Poor, misunderstood, drunk, only becoming successful after death: everyone knows the cliché of the tortured bohemian artist, and none fit the description more than Amadeo Modigliani. Known as Modì to his friends (a play on the french word maudit meaning cursed) he was good looking, intelligent, and prone to substance abuse and the financial ruin that came with it
His work is easily recognizable for his style of portraits with elongated faces, simplified features, eyes without pupils, and arched necks. He is so renowned for painting these characteristics that the medical condition pseudo-goitre, which involves a swelling of the neck resulting in a curve, is also known as Modigliani syndrome.
Despite the acclaim his paintings now receive, he lived a difficult life. He died from tuberculosis at the age of 35 in Paris, deeply impoverished and reportedly being reduced to giving away work in exchange for meals. However, as the familiar adage goes, his paintings now sell for enormous amounts of money. Around 95 years after his death, his painting Nu couché sold for around $170.4 million, one of the most expensive paintings ever sold.
Here are 7 things you might not know about the tragic life of one of the 19th century's most infamous artists:
Caryatid ((c. 1913-1915)) by Amedeo ModiglianiNational Gallery of Victoria
He helped save his family from ruin – before he was born
Modigliani’s family home was in Livorno, Italy, where his father was a wealthy young mining engineer. Unfortunately an economic depression in 1883 spiraled the family into bankruptcy, considerably reducing their fortune. His well-educated mother set up a school to bring in some extra income to support the family but the debtors still came calling just as she was going into labor.
Luckily for the family, an ancient law existed that stated that creditors were forbidden to seize the bed of a pregnant woman and the resourceful Modiglianis exploited this to rescue any belongings of worth. They piled all their prized possessions on top of Modigliani’s mother as she was giving birth so the bailiffs couldn't take them, saving the family from ruin.
Portrait of the Artist Léopold Survage (1918) by Amedeo ModiglianiAteneum Art Museum
His art teacher nicknamed him superman
Modigliani began painting at a very young age and once while sick and delirious with typhoid fever declared that all he wanted in the world was to see the paintings in the Palazzo Pitti and the Uffizi in Florence. The moment he recovered his mother obliged, and realising how deep his passion for the arts ran, she enrolled him with the best painting master in the city, Guglielmo Micheli.
Modigliani studied landscape, portrait, still life, and the nude, the latter at which he was most adept. Micheli nicknamed him “Superman” for his impressive talents and for the young artist’s obsession with Nietzsche's Thus Spoke Zarathustra, which frequently mentioned the "prophecy" of the Übermensch, or superman.
The Boy (1919) by Modigliani, AmedeoIndianapolis Museum of Art at Newfields
He moved to Paris and had a makeover
When he was 24, Modigliani moved to Paris and set up in Le Bateau-Lavoir, a commune for penniless artists in Montmartre, but he was determined that his appearance should reflect his family’s once-great wealth. He dressed smartly and decorated his studio with plush draperies and renaissance reproductions.
Upon meeting Picasso, who wore workmen’s clothes, he even commented that nothing excused such an uncouth appearance, no matter the genius. However, a year after he arrived in Paris he transformed his image completely. He tried to emulate a bohemian artist, letting his clothes and studio fall into disarray and also destroyed some of his earlier works, describing them as “Childish baubles, done when I was a dirty bourgeois.”
Portrait of Léopold Zborowski (1916) by Amedeo ModiglianiThe Israel Museum, Jerusalem
He turned to drink and drugs to disguise how ill he was
Modigliani suffered with tuberculosis, and it is thought that his self-enforced transformation into an impoverished artist was an effort to disguise how ill he really was. He drank heavily, took drugs, and hoped his hedonism would mask his sickened appearance and gradual weakening. Of course this also led to some pretty wild behavior: absinthe and hashish binges would sometimes lead him to strip off his clothes at parties.
Modigliani would have wanted to keep his condition hidden as those that suffered from tuberculosis were often pitied, or even feared, and ultimately avoided because the incurable disease spread easily.
Head of a Woman (c.1911-1912) by Amedeo ModiglianiNational Gallery of Art, Washington DC
He was also a talented sculptor
He might have been best known for his paintings, but Modigilano had always fancied himself a sculptor. He was the disciple of sculptor Constantin Brâncuși for one year, whose radically simplified forms, evocative of tribal art, made a huge impression on Modigliani.
He initially carved a series of 20 heads from sandstone but unfortunately his sculpting career was short lived as the outbreak of WW2 meant that it was difficult to acquire sculptural material. His encroaching illness also meant that his physical capabilities declined. He did manage to exhibit a series of his works in the Autumn Salon in 1912 and almost a century later in 2010, one of his sculptures, Tete, a two-foot limestone sculpture of a woman’s head wearing a tribal mask, became the third most expensive sculpture ever sold.
Nudo sdraiato (1918-1919) by Amedeo ModiglianiLa Galleria Nazionale
Police closed his only ever solo exhibition on the first day
Modigliani is most famous for his nudes, which were largely commissioned by his friend and art dealer Léopold Zborowski. In 1917, Modigliani had his first and only solo show and it caused quite the scandal for its sensational and shocking content.
On its first day, within a few hours of the doors opening, police closed down the exhibition on the grounds that the seven nude paintings being displayed were obscene. The exhibit was only allowed to reopen once the paintings were removed from the gallery’s street front window.
Portrait of Jeanne Hebuterne, Seated, 1918 (1918) by Amedeo ModiglianiThe Israel Museum, Jerusalem
His lover also met a tragic end
The last in Modigliani’s string of lovers was beautiful art student Jeanne Hébuterne who, against the objections of her conservative family, moved in with Modigliani and later relocated with him to Nice. The 20-year-old Hébuterne gave birth to their daughter Jeanne in 1919, and became pregnant again the following year.
The couple got engaged, but unfortunately Modigliani’s health took a turn for the worse and he died in January 1920 from tubercular meningitis. Eight months pregnant and distraught with grief, Hébuterne threw herself out of a fifth-floor window the next day. The two now share a grave near Paris, his epitaph reading: “Struck down by death at the moment of glory” and hers: “Devoted companion to the extreme sacrifice".
Paul Guillaume, Novo Pilota (1915) by Amedeo ModiglianiMusée de l'Orangerie
Discover more of Modigliani's work, here.
