Modigliani, Amedeo (1884–1920)

Italian painter and sculptor, active in France from 1906. He is best known for graceful nudes and portraits. His paintings – for example, the portrait of his mistress Jeanne Hébuterne (1919; Guggenheim Museum, New York) – have a distinctive style, the forms elongated and sensual.

Born in Livorno of an Italian-Jewish family, he first studied art in Florence and Venice, but settled in Paris 1906. He was encouraged to sculpt by Constantin Brancusi, the study of African tribal masks suggesting the bold elongation and simplification of his sculptured heads, as in Stone Head 1911 (Philadelphia Museum of Art, Pensylvania). His paintings showed the same influences, though in their subtle colour and their sensitive linear design they show his sympathy with Italian Renaissance art, particularly that of Botticelli. Typical are the portrait Lunia Czechowska 1916 (Musée de Peinture, Grenoble), and the nude Standing Nude (Elvira) 1918 (Kunstmuseum, Bern).

After years of poverty he had some little success towards 1918, but privations, drugs, alcohol, and tuberculosis combined to cut short his life.