A few years ago, a painting of his was sold at auction for 150 million euros. When he was still working, he was happy if he earned enough for a plate of soup. He lived in Paris, the bohemian capital of the world, at the beginning of the 20th century and was an alcoholic, a dreamer and a womaniser. He died of tuberculosis at a young age, just before it looked like he would finally be famous. Amedeo Modigliani is almost a caricature of the misunderstood artist. His dissolute and tragic life almost overshadowed the masterpieces he created.
His paintings, from which elongated figures with triangular noses and narrow eyes gaze melancholy, are unmistakable. And incredibly popular. In an era when artists were experimenting with form and content – like his peer Picasso – he was painting portraits. Cubism, Futurism and all the other “isms” that marked the beginning of the last century did not interest him. Amedeo Modigliani was a true individual, an artist and a bohemian par excellence.
Marked from birth
He had many friends. There was not an artist in Paris who did not at least once engage him in conversation about painting, philosophy and other fateful issues. Usually at night, in a smoky café, with a bottle of cheap wine. Everyone knew him and everyone has a story about him. Despite this, or perhaps because of it, it is difficult to separate myth from truth in his life. As befits an eccentric artist.
One of the legends is his own. He claimed to be a distant relative of Baruch Spinoza, the great 17th century Dutch philosopher of Jewish origin. Modigliani was an Italian Jew, but historians have not yet found a link between him and his alleged ancestor. Judaism was part of his identity, even though he was not a religious man in any sense.
He was born in 1884 in Livorno, a port city in Tuscany. His mother Eugenie came from the Garsins, a prosperous Jewish family that had lived for centuries along the shores of the western Mediterranean. The Garsins were cosmopolitan – educated, polyglots and lovers of art. In the good times, they had servants, summer residences and enough money to trade shares on the London Stock Exchange.
Towards the end of the 19th century, part of the family settled in Livorno, where Eugenie, the mother of a future bohemian, married into the Modigliani family. It was an arranged marriage, a common bargain in those days. “The first months of our marriage were desolate and lifeless, and it stayed that way until the end. I can honestly say that my husband did not exist for me”, Eugenie recalls.
She was thinking of Flaminio, the father of the future bohemian, who also came from a successful but not particularly cultured Italian Jewish family. The Modigliani family were rich and serious businessmen, owning zinc mines all over Italy, and when Eugenie and Flaminio married it looked like it would be a good deal for both families, but the fall in the price of metals caused the Modigliani empire to crumble within a few years.
Amedeo, called Dedo, was born in 5644 according to the Jewish calendar – into a Jewish family that was already bankrupt at the time.
His father, Flaminio, was away most of the time and was not much of a family man. So Dedo became attached to his mother and she to him. More than Modigliani, he was Garsin, an artistic soul. At the age of ten, he was already drawing, and since there was no paper, the walls and furniture came in handy. Family legend has it that it was clear even then that he was going to be a painter.
On his mother’s side, he also inherited fragile health. He began to fall ill at an early age and at the age of thirteen he almost died of pneumonia, but not long afterwards the disease developed into tuberculosis, an incurable disease for those times. Over the years, he came to terms with this and, above all, learned how to hide his vulnerability from others. He was an excellent actor, one of the best in Paris. At times he was depressed and even depressing, it is true, but no one suspected that he was aware, even as a young man, that he would not live to a ripe old age.
All roads lead to Paris
The family was supported by his mother Eugenie, who taught French and soon opened a language school in the family home. Grandfather was given the opportunity to study painting with a self-taught master painter from Livorno. He was described by his classmates as a shy, quarrelsome man. He was a calm pupil, but if something made him angry – and anything could make him angry – he could not be calmed down. Then anything he could get his hands on flew around the classroom.
Even then he read a lot and was considered an intellectual. Because he was so fond of Nietzsche, he was derisively called “the superman”. Although he was poor, his manners were practically aristocratic. This was how he was later spoken of in Paris. Even when he was sleeping on the streets and could not afford even a hot meal, Modigliani exuded a kind of dignity that belongs to self-confident people.
My grandfather spent a lot of time in spas in the south of Italy. He feared doctors and treatment more than the disease itself. Fortunately, his mother Eugenie accompanied him and took care of him night and day. Together they visited Italian museums and it was there that he saw the works of the old masters in the flesh for the first time. At the age of 18, he enrolled at the Academy of Fine Arts in Venice and tried his hand at sculpture, but he saw his future mainly in the fine arts. Venice, and Italy, was too crowded for ambitious artists. Anyone who wanted to succeed had to go to Paris, the art capital of the world.
Amedeo Modigliani arrived in the French capital in January 1906. On arrival, he had enough money to rent a small hotel room in Montmartre, a haven for rebels and artistic souls from all over the world. It was as if there were no bakers or chimney sweeps, the inhabitants of Montmartre were all poets, painters, sculptors and the like.
Picasso had been working there for some years, and Modigliani’s neighbours included the Mexican painter Diego Rivera and the poet Guillaume Apollinaire. Any artist who had something to give of himself had to live in Montmartre. The less successful ones – they were in the vast majority – lived in shabby studio apartments, without water or heating, but that didn’t matter. Montmartre was the cultural centre of the world, a mandatory stop on the road to eternity.
Bohemian life
Modigliani felt like a fish out of water in his new surroundings, which is not surprising, as his charm was second to none. He was an engaging conversationalist and could spend hours debating art or philosophy. He would quote Dante as a joke and sing Verdi arias at the top of his voice. There was never a dull moment with him. Everyone knew him and everyone adored him.
On top of all that, he was a man of great beauty and charm. Even in his youth he had to be afraid of women, and in Paris it was no different. If you were to judge him by his clothes and his behaviour, he could be mistaken for a prince. He was polite and spoke perfect French. And only when he was pissed off did he resort to his favourite “Porca Madonna!”.
Life in Montmartre was very cheap, but not free. After a few months, Modigliani had spent all the money his mother had given him to go on the road, and he had to move into the first of many holes. In the following years, he changed so many flats that even the best experts on his biography do not know where he lived. It was not uncommon for him to sleep under a soap sky, but fortunately he had so many friends that even in the most difficult times he found a place in a corridor.
In the artistic community, relations were generally solidary. When Modigliani wasn’t painting, and he painted a lot, he would sit with his friends in cafés, where opinions about beauty, art and its place in society would be discussed between clouds of cigarette smoke.
It was there, in the smoky cafés of Montmartre that closed their doors in the late morning, that Modigliani first started drinking. Some of his acquaintances claimed that he drank no more than the others, but that was a poor consolation. After a few glasses, he was still decent – smiling, cultured and a little more talkative. If he drank too much, however, he turned into a spoilsport and a boor. It was not unusual for him to be thrown into the street by the barman after a particularly difficult night.
It was also one of his favourite tricks when he had no money for dinner. Just before the bill was brought to him, he started shouting and scolding the staff. “A poor man shouldn’t starve,” he liked to say. If necessary, he would even start undressing. He was so annoying that he got his way. He threw him out the door and forgot about the bill. The show was almost always a success, it was just that the venue had to be changed often enough.
Hashish was also very popular among the bohemians of Montmartre and Modigliani indulged in the pleasures of THC for quite some time. Hashish, like cocaine, was not illegal at the time, so bohemian parties were, noise aside, perfectly legal.
It was at one of these parties that Modigliani met Paul Alexander, a doctor and great lover of art. Alexander lived in a huge townhouse where artists gathered every Sunday evening. They played chess, recited poetry and danced. Wine and drugs never ran out. Alexandre was not only a great host, he also helped the artists financially.
He and Modigliani became instant friends and the doctor became the first person to buy his works. For little or no money, sometimes a hot meal was enough. Needless to say, these same works are worth millions of euros today.
A painter who sculpts
Modigliani found a patron and a confidant. When he was hungry, he could always invite himself to dinner. Through Alexander, he met another special man who became one of his best friends. This was Constantin Brancusi, a Romanian sculptor born into a peasant family somewhere in the foothills of the Carpathian Mountains. He was a shepherd as a child and did not even finish primary school, but he had an extraordinary talent for shaping wood.
By a miracle, he won a scholarship to the academy in Bucharest, but he set off for Paris on foot and, having no money, he worked in the fields and slept in haylofts on the way. Brancusi was a genius and he soon made his mark in Paris. Today he is one of the giants of modern sculpture.
Perhaps it was because of his friendship with him that Modigliani returned to stone design for a while. Perhaps he gave up painting, for in a few years he did not sell a single painting – apart from those for which he received payment in the form of dinner or a bed. In 1909, at Brancusi’s instigation, he also moved to the Montparnasse neighbourhood, which was to become the new centre of the world avant-garde.
There, Modigliani rented a small studio on the ground floor. This came in handy, as he did not have to lug huge blocks of stone up the stairs. He sculpted as he painted – energetically, with enthusiasm, almost furiously. Some sculptors first made a model in clay, a kind and grateful material, but Modigliani immediately turned to stone. Sculpture is an expensive art and he had to borrow materials – from nearby building sites, at night.
He made dozens of sketches before he started work, just as he does when painting. Soon the head emerged from a lump of stone, taking on more abstract features with each passing day, until it seemed that all that was left was an elongated nose “a la Modigliani”. “Don’t forget the nose, Amedeo”, a friend who often came to the studio used to sting him.
Of course, he couldn’t sell his strange heads, so he used them as candlesticks. A few years ago, one sold for 70 million dollars, which, incidentally, is exactly one million more than the auction price of Brancusi’s most famous statue. Art historians disagree whether Modigliani was a sculptor who painted or a painter who sculpted. Given the number of hours he spent in front of the canvas, it would probably be the latter.
The man in the foreground
It is a real miracle that so many of his works have survived to this day. Because he was a perfectionist, many of his paintings were destroyed, others were donated, and some were simply lost due to his frequent moves. He also used paintings to “pay” his food bills or rent. In those cafés where he was still welcome, his portraits hung on the kitchen walls.
There are stories of innkeepers wrapping fish in them or stuffing them into mattresses in winter. He also sold his artwork to café guests. With his blue drawing pad, which he always carried with him, he was the fear and trembling of Montparnasse.
When he entered, he would start walking between the tables and if a victim happened to glance in his direction, he would instantly pull up a chair. Experience told him that the victim should be a well-dressed lady, preferably accompanied by her husband, or better still, a lover. Then he took a pencil from his pocket and started to draw. Modigliani was a professional from head to toe.
After four hours and tons of crumpled paper, the portrait was finished. Sometimes it happened that the figure in the drawing was more beautiful than the living person and he got paid for it. A glass of wine or maybe even whisky. If he made three invoices in one evening, that was already a success.
In this way, he kept his painting in shape without having to pay for the services of models, which was common practice at the time. Modigliani painted only portraits and nudes. There are hardly any subjects in his paintings, and he always hated still lifes and landscapes. Nature left him cold, he was interested in man. “When I know your soul, I will paint your eyes,” he used to say.
These eyes were sometimes empty in his paintings, but at the same time alive and eloquent. His sitters never smiled. “Happiness is an angel with a serious face” is another Modigliani quote. Unlike the painters of his time, who were breaking down artistic canons bit by bit and playing with abstract forms, Modigliani pursued simplicity.
Among his friends
His friends also posed for him. He painted, or at least drew, almost all the Montparnasse and even earlier Montmartre bohemians. Even the biggest star among them, Pablo Picasso. The Spaniard, who was “ten years ahead of everyone”, as Modigliani claimed, even bought some of his paintings out of artistic solidarity. They were never exactly friends, more like acquaintances, but they respected each other.
Picasso was known for his folksy, proletarian attire, which the Italian gizdalino found rather amusing. Even if a man is a genius, that doesn’t give him the right to dress badly, he reasoned. Ironically, Picasso claimed that he had never met anyone who could dress as well as Modigliani. Eventually, as the Italian became more and more alcoholic, the famous Spaniard broke off relations with him.
The bohemians of Montparnasse could tell that Modigliani’s binge drinking had gone beyond the limits of good taste in 1914, when the First World War broke out. He was a socialist by political conviction and therefore a pacifist, but the war had nothing to do with his alcoholism. Some historians believe that this was the first time that tuberculosis had resurfaced in a long time.
Modigliani had no money for cough medicine, a troublesome symptom of the disease, and resorted to alternative treatments. A few sips of whisky, cognac or, in the worst cases, wine, would calm the cough and the patient would not have to wave a bloodstained handkerchief in the middle of the café. Modigliani carefully guarded his secret. Apart from his relatives in Livorno, no one knew he had tuberculosis.
He was only thirty, but his time was running out. This is probably why he started to paint even more intensively. And drinking. For a moment, it even seemed that fortune was finally smiling on him. The credit for this goes to Paul Guillaume, an ambitious art collector with a good business sense who fell in love with Modigliani’s work and became, as we would say today, his manager. The stone heads and the sombre portraits even went on show in London and New York at the time.
Modigliani sold some of his works and proudly wrote to his mother in Livorno, saying that he could finally live off his work. In reality, he was still eating in people’s kitchens and up to his ears in debt, but things were moving for the better. Even in his private life.
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A muse and a saviour
With his Mediterranean charm, aristocratic manners and unspeakable beauty, Modigliani had a reputation as the greatest heartbreaker among the bohemians of Paris. If women are to be believed, he was irresistible. He gave them books and brought them flowers for breakfast, which he had stolen the night before from the cemetery. He had numerous affairs and affairs and, in all probability, some illegitimate children. Even when it was all over, he remained a gentleman. Sometimes he even fell in love, but most of his relationships were short-lived. Until he met Beatrice Hastings in 1914.
Bea, as her friends called her, was English by birth but grew up in South Africa. As a young girl, she decided not to live like her mother, who had sacrificed her whole life to care for her and her sixteen brothers and sisters. Perhaps that is why she became a fervent feminist. She hated motherhood and everything that goes with it. She summarised her thoughts in a book with the meaningful title Women’s greatest enemy: women.
She wore mini-skirts and changed lovers like clockwork. In her youth, she lived with a boxer, but soon left him, took a sailboat to New York and tried to make it as an actress. She quickly realised that the stage was not for her and returned to London. There she became involved in an affair with Alfred Orango, a prominent British intellectual and editor, who opened the door to the world of journalism and art.
By the time she arrived in Paris in 1914, she was already an established poet, writer, journalist and much more. She was also single. When she first met Modigliani, he did not make a good impression on her, as he was unshaven and smelled of wine and hashish. Legend has it that the spark jumped at the second meeting. At the time, Amedeo was in his element – suave, funny and charming.
They immediately realised they had a lot in common. They shared a love of art and an aversion to anything that smacked of the “bourgeoisie”. Bea was also a real café animal, and Amedeo had never met a woman who drank so much. But the fact that she was a rich woman compared to him and that she loved to help people in need must have contributed to their happy union. And Amedeo was always in need. On top of that, she shared a name with Dante’s muse. What more could a suffering artist want? Amedeo, in love up to his ears, warned her not to fall in love with him.
A bohemian life for two
He soon moved into the apartment Bea had rented in the heart of Montparnasse and for the first time in a long time he slept in a normal bed. The flat even had water and heating. She also rented a studio where he could paint in peace. He painted almost exclusively for her. They went to art galleries and had dinner in little restaurants. The war was raging not far from Paris, but the bohemian life for two was pleasant.
From the start, their friends were convinced that the idyll would not last. There was too much debauchery and alcohol, too much unhealthy passion. When he was in love, Amedeo had a Mediterranean jealousy that the free-spirited Bea certainly did not like. She was attracted to adventure, fun and sex – things that were the preserve of men.
Her friends were not quite right, as their relationship lasted two years. That’s a long time for a bohemian couple. But it is true that it all ended in scandal.
It started in a café, where one evening the Englishwoman caught the Italian in the company of a buxom Canadian and knocked a glass over her head. The fact that the Canadian, who was only scarred, was a good friend of the Italian’s, can be considered as a mitigating circumstance. The Englishwoman has also found herself a new lover. Perhaps even before that, it is not quite clear, nor does it matter.
The height of the scandal came in early 1917 at one of the parties which brought together all the artists who had made a difference in Montparnasse, including Picasso and Matisse. It is therefore not surprising that there is even a drawing immortalising this unpleasant but comic evening.
The hostess, the Russian painter Maria Vasilyeva, who had also invited Bea and her lover, correctly assumed that Modigliani would have been better off skipping the party this time and offered him three francs to stay at home. Amedeo had never been one to defend money, but this time his jealousy got the better of him and just as the turkey was being put on the table, he burst into the apartment and angrily strode towards his former muse.
From that moment on, the scene is shrouded in fog – because of the lateness of the hour, or maybe something else. There was talk of a fight, and even a gun was reportedly fired. According to some accounts, it was Picasso who calmed the uninvited guest, escorted him out into the cold Paris night and locked the door behind him.
The only thing that is clear is that Modigliani was left without his three francs. As a mitigating circumstance, perhaps, we can consider the fact that the lover of his former muse was a young Italian artist who, by all accounts, was even more handsome than he.
Jeanne
The scandal at Vasile’s was soon forgotten, and Montparnasse was never boring even without Modigliani. Bea was also forgotten. His reputation may have suffered as a result of similar lapses and drinking, but he still had enough admirers as an artist. He also found a new manager, or rather, the manager found him. Modigliani had no business acumen.
He was Leopold Zborowski, a young Polish man who had come to Paris with the intention of going to the Sorbonne, but whose plans were interrupted by the First World War. He was well-educated, an artist at heart and extremely inventive. He found that he could buy a painting from an impoverished painter in Montmartre for a few francs and then sell it to a collector for several times that price. He had many protégés, but Modigliani was the most promising.
Zborowski paid him a few hundred francs a month and provided him with a studio. He also gave him a room in his flat and Modigliani became part of the family. The business plan was simple. The painter painted – the more the better – the manager sold. Zborowski is also credited with getting Modigliani to start painting nudes, which are now considered among his most popular works.
At the end of 1917, however, circumstances were different. He had his first solo exhibition, which was an achievement in itself, but it was overshadowed by paintings of nude women with triangular noses and sad eyes.
There was a police station opposite the gallery where the exhibition was being held, and it was not long before the guardians of peace and morals knocked on the shop window with a baton. A few words about pubic hair followed and the pictures were removed. This was probably the manager’s intention, but the bold advertising campaign did not pay off and Modigliani went back to painting portraits.
The last years of the war are considered his most fruitful period. During this time he produced a new portrait every week. By then he was already seriously ill. He never doubted himself, but he was aware that he was running out of time.
Fortunately, the gods sent him a new muse, who became his second and last great love. Jeanne Hebuterne, a nineteen-year-old from a provincial town, came to Paris to become a painter. She earned her living as a model and posed for famous Montparnasse artists. This is how she met and fell in love with Modigliani, the king of the bohemians. She was a shy and decent woman from a decent family, the opposite of Beatrice.
An indecent relationship
Jeanne was curious and educated, played the violin and learned Russian. She was not a classic beauty, but there was something mysteriously attractive about her languid features. Modigliani tried day after day to capture this attraction on canvas. He painted twenty portraits and drew countless sketches of his new muse. No one awakened in him as much artistic passion as she did.
Friends said she cared for him like a wounded puppy and put up with his café escapades well. She was a housewife, a lover and a friend. Amedeo had promised her that they would marry, but it was anything but easy.
Jeanne kept the relationship a secret from her conservative parents for a long time, as they would not have been happy to see her living with a poor alcoholic who thought he was the greatest artist in Paris. Her Jewish background was also a bad omen for a potential son-in-law.
As if being an unmarried woman sharing a bed with an unmarried man was not enough, Jeanne became pregnant in 1918. This was very bad news for everyone involved. Jeanne was, in her own words, incapable of bringing up a child, Amedeo even less so.
Her parents tried to force the marriage, but due to bureaucratic complications and mutual recriminations, it never happened. Giovanna Modigliani was born on 29 November 1918 into an enchanted family.
Amedeo and Jeanne were living in Nice at the time, where they were invited by their friend Zborowski. On the Côte d’Azur, he organised a kind of artists’ colony for the bohemians fleeing Paris from the Spanish flu and the German guns. The Mediterranean climate was almost as beneficial to Modigliani as the birth of his daughter. His friends noticed that he even stopped drinking for a while. Little girls and mothers with their children began to appear in his paintings.
Amedeo was in seventh heaven, but little Giovanna, everyone called her Jeanne, had in reality neither father nor mother. Jeanne was inexperienced and unprepared for motherhood. “As a mother, I would rate myself a zero,” she declared. Amedeo was not even capable of looking after himself, let alone a baby.
On the road to eternity
After a year at sea, he returned to Paris and buried himself in work. The war was over, the cafés of Montparnasse were full again. He was working flat out, because that summer he had an opportunity that he could not pass up at any cost. An exhibition of the most important living painters, with Picasso at its head, was scheduled in London. Zborowski had secured him a place among the greats.
The exhibition was a complete success. The British critics were full of praise for the unknown Italian. “I must admit that four of Modigliani’s works look suspiciously like masterpieces,” wrote one.
This should have been the start of a successful career and a new, decent life, but it was too late. By then he was already seriously ill. Zborowski brought him some newspapers from London reporting on the exhibition, and Modigliani was moved to tears. “C’est magnifique!” he exclaimed and started kissing the newspapers. He had the feeling that the world finally understood him.
He continued to paint every day, but at the end of 1919, just a few months after the exhibition, tuberculosis entered its final stage. His teeth began to fall out and he coughed up blood more and more frequently. His strength was failing him.
Jeanne was pregnant again and Amedeo knew he would not live to see the birth of his second child. In the meantime, their daughter was living with a nanny in the suburbs of Paris, and the parents visited more rarely. There was nothing bohemian about it. Neither of them knew how to live in the real world. It was as if the proverbial black cloud that had followed Amedeo all his life had descended on Jeanne too.
Some of her friends believed that he had cast a spell on her and dragged her into his sick world. While he was carousing in cafés, she was waiting for him at home. Pregnant, scared and desperate. A poor unmarried woman with two children had no future.
Epilog
On the first of January 1920, Modigliani knocked on the door of Zborowski’s house early in the morning. He was holding a large bunch of flowers and seemed to be in good spirits. He was also quite drunk, and New Year’s Eve was not yet over for him. Zborowski prepared his bed and persuaded him to go to sleep.
He woke up in the evening and went home in a dishevelled state. A few days later, he met his friends at a café and they did not notice anything wrong with him. Zborowski claimed that he was still painting, as furious and energetic as ever. He was indeed already shaved and toothless, but everyone attributed this to his drunkenness. Modigliani, however, knew at that time that he would soon die.
After a night of sleep – he came back too cold and wet to the bone – he lay in bed. He complained of pain in his kidneys and Jeanne called the doctor. Nothing worse, the patient should rest. A few days later, he started coughing up blood and the same doctor saw him again. This time he was more concerned, but advised that the patient should remain in home care until he stopped coughing.
The next day, Modigliani fell into a coma. He was taken to hospital but did not wake up. He died of tuberculous meningitis on 24 January 1920, aged 35.
His death surprised everyone. A few hours later, Zborowski called a meeting at which his friends decided how to give a fitting farewell to the bohemian. The Pole sent a telegram of mourning to Livorno and received a request from Livorno to “bury Modigliani like a prince”. So the legend goes.
They sent him enough money to make his wish come true. Someone remembered that Modigliani should have been buried in the company of the greatest, in the famous Pere Lachaise cemetery, where Balzac, Chopin, Rossini, and later Proust, Oscar Wilde and Jim Morisson were buried.
A cart with a huge coffin, pulled by two black wranglers, wound its way for hours through the streets of Paris, tucked under a mountain of flowers. Thousands of people watched the procession. Legend has it that speculators tried to buy from the mourners the drawings that Modigliani was so fond of giving away.
During the funeral, and this is not a legend, an exhibition of twenty works by the deceased was held on the other side of the city. It is not clear where they came from. In the following days, all the unfinished canvases mysteriously disappeared from his studio … When he was still alive, Modigliani was considered a weirdo, wandering around cafés begging for a glass of whisky. When he died, he became a painter.
The whole of Montmartre gathered for his funeral. Picasso, the Brancusi and all the others who were in one way or another connected with bohemianism came to say goodbye to their friend. Also those with whom he had had a falling out and those to whom he owed money. Jeanne was the only one missing. That same day, at three o’clock at night, she opened her bedroom window and jumped to her death. She was eight months pregnant.
