MUSEUM QUALITY ARTIFACTS
Private Collection Estate Sale
Extremely rare and precious
Signed original large drawing
Amadeo Modigliani
'Woman's Head' (Tête de femme)
Size : 41,7 cm x 35,5 cm (16.7" x 14.2")
Artwork on
sale is an early 1900’s original pencil and graphite drawing
Not framed –
handsigned with monogram ‘m’ on right hand side bottom corner
Around 1910, the Italian Jewish
artist Amedeo Modigliani sought to establish a new sculptural language,
inspired by African and Ancient Greek objects. ‘Tête de Femme’ is one of the
sketches Modigliani made in preparation for his sculptural heads which were
characterised with elongated faces and stylised features.
The elongated forms and simple
linear features – eclectically borrowed from African and oceanic tribal masks,
medieval carvings and classical sculpture – show how for Modigliani the
primitive could be decisively modern.
Amedeo Modigliani’s work is
recognized immediately by many people because of the typical elongated shapes.
His paintings show his passion for sculpting, a craft which he had to give up
in 1915 due to ill health.
Info on Amadeo Modigliani :
Amedeo Clemente Modigliani (July 12, 1884 – January 24, 1920) was an Italian artist who worked mainly in France. Primarily a figurative artist, he became known for paintings and sculptures in a modern style characterized by mask-like faces and elongation of form. He died in Paris of tubercular meningitis, exacerbated by poverty, overwork and addiction to alcohol and narcotics.
Having been exposed to erudite philosophical
literature as a young boy under the tutelage of Isaco Garsin, his maternal
grandfather, he continued to read and be influenced through his art studies by
the writings of Nietzsche, Baudelaire, Carducci, Comte de Lautréamont, and
others, and developed the belief that the only route to true creativity was
through defiance and disorder.
In 1906 Modigliani moved to Paris, then the focal point of the avant-garde. In fact, his arrival at the centre of artistic experimentation coincided with the arrival of two other foreigners who were also to leave their marks upon the art world: Gino Severini and Juan Gris.
He sought the company of artists such as Utrillo and Soutine, seeking acceptance and validation for his work from his colleagues. Modigliani's behavior stood out even in these Bohemian surroundings: he carried on frequent affairs, drank heavily, and used absinthe and hashish. While drunk, he would sometimes strip himself naked at social gatherings. He became the epitome of the tragic artist, creating a posthumous legend almost as well-known as that of Vincent van Gogh.
During his early years in Paris, Modigliani worked at
a furious pace. He was constantly sketching, making as many as a hundred
drawings a day. However, many of his works were lost—destroyed by him as
inferior, left behind in his frequent changes of address, or given to
girlfriends who did not keep them. He was first influenced by Henri de
Toulouse-Lautrec, but around 1907 he became fascinated with the work of Paul
Cézanne. Eventually he developed his own unique style, one that cannot be
adequately categorized with other artists.
Modigliani painted a series of portraits of contemporary artists and friends in Montparnasse: Chaim Soutine, Moise Kisling, Pablo Picasso, Diego Rivera, Marie "Marevna" Vorobyev-Stebeslka, Anna Akhmatova, Juan Gris, Max Jacob, Blaise Cendrars, and Jean Cocteau, all sat for stylized renditions.
In 1917 the Russian sculptor Chana Orloff introduced
him to a beautiful 19-year-old art student named Jeanne Hébuterne who had posed
for Tsuguharu Foujita. From a conservative bourgeois background, Hébuterne was
renounced by her devout Roman Catholic family for her liaison with the painter,
whom they saw as little more than a debauched derelict. Despite her family's
objections, soon they were living together, and although Hébuterne was the
current love of his life, their public scenes became more renowned than
Modigliani's individual drunken exhibitions.
On December 3, 1917, Modigliani's first one-man exhibition opened at the Berthe Weill Gallery. The chief of the Paris police was scandalized by Modigliani's nudes and forced him to close the exhibition within a few hours after its opening.
After he and Hébuterne moved to Nice, she became
pregnant and on November 29, 1918 gave birth to a daughter whom they named
Jeanne (1918–1984). When Modigliani died on January 24, 1920 Hébuterne was pregnant
with their second child.
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