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

 Has been made on very heavy hand poured paper of the 19th’s.

 ‘Woman’s Head’ is in the style of his Caryatid drawings

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.

 Artwork is in overall very good condition – shows some minor wear and tear

 Work has been bought at Leo Castelli Gallery – New York in 1989 and comes with COA

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.

WILL  ACCEPT  SPREAD  PAYMENTS  UP  TO  15  MONTHS  IN  ORDER  TO  ATTRACT  MORE  POTENTIAL  BUYERS

 BUY  ONLY  IF  YOU  ARE  WILLING  TO  PAY