Meryle Secrest - Modigliani: A Life

THIS IS A BORZOI BOOK
PUBLISHED BY ALFRED A. KNOPF

Copyright 2011 by Meryle Secrest Beveridge

All rights reserved. Published in the United States by Alfred A. Knopf, a division of Random House, Inc., New York and in Canada by Random House of Canada Limited, Toronto.
www.aaknopf.com

Knopf, Borzoi Books, and the colophon are registered trademarks of Random House, Inc.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Secrest, Meryle.
Modigliani : a life / by Meryle Secrest.1st ed.
p. cm.
A Borzoi book.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
eISBN: 978-0-307-59547-8
1. Modigliani, Amedeo, 18841920. 2. PaintersItalyBiography.
I. Modigliani, Amedeo, 18841920. II. Title.
ND623.M67S43 2011
759.5dc22
[B]
2010045357

Front-of-jacket photograph of Amedeo Modigliani, c. 1906, by Marc Vaux. Collection Dolly van Dongen, Bibliothque Kandinsky, Centre Pompidou, fonds Marc Vaux. Snark / Art Resource, NY

Jacket design by Carol Devine Carson

v3.1_r1

Modigliani, c. 1916

for Tom

For the outer sense alone perceives visible things and the eye of the heart alone sees the invisible.

R ICHARD OF S AINT -V ICTOR (d. 1173)

CONTENTS

[Frontispiece] Modigliani, c. 1916

Chester Dale, c. 1930

Maud Dale, 1927

Grard Philipe in the title role of Modigliani of Montparnasse, 1958

The historians Julie Martin and Billy Klver in Venice, 1988

Flaminio Modigliani as a young man, no date

The house in via Roma where Modigliani was born in 1884

Eugnie and Flaminio Modigliani just before Amedeo Modiglianis birth, 1884

Dedo with his nurse

An undated photograph of Uncle Amde Garsin

Amedeo Modigliani, Giovanni Fattori of the Macchiaoli school of Italian painting, and his wife

The via Vittorio Emanuele

The port of Livorno

A school play

Giuseppe Emanuele Modigliani, 1900

Giovanni Fattori, no date

The photograph thought to be of Dedo found in G. E. Modiglianis archive

Portrait of himself wearing a sailor suit by Amedeo Modigliani

Modigliani at work in a studio in Livorno, 1899

Katherine Mansfield, 1918

Modigliani, c. 1905

Modigliani, Paris, c. 1906

Thtre Sarah Bernhardt, 1906

The Bois de Boulogne, 1905

Cabaret du Lapin Agile

A typical evening at the Lapin Agile

The Bateau Lavoir, Montmartre

The rue des Saules, Montmartre

Chez Rosalie

Rosalie

Colette Comoy-Alexandre, Sceaux, outside Paris

Nol Alexandre, a son of Paul Alexandre, Modiglianis first patron

The young doctor Paul Alexandre, 1909

A theatrical evening at the rue du Delta

The villa on the rue du Delta, 1913

Modiglianis study in watercolor of Maud Abrantes

Brancusi, 1905

Paul Alexandres younger brother Jean

One of Modiglianis early experiments in sculpture

A preparatory sketch for The Cellist, 1910

Anna Akhmatova, 1910

A period view of the Luxembourg Gardens

Modiglianis studio at the Cit Falguire

The popular terrace of the Rotonde, 191920

Francis Carco, Michel Georges-Michel, and Andr Salmon, the bar of the Dme

The center of Montparnasse, the Carrefour Vavin, 1905

Paris under water after the great flood, 1910

Le Douanier Rousseau, 1890

The painting of Jean Cocteau by Modigliani

Maurice Utrillo, Susan Valadon, and his stepfather, Andr Utter, 1920s

Soutine

A recent view of the gated entrance to La Ruche

Soutine, with his dealer, Lopold Zborowski, early 1920s

Lopold Survage, 1935

Modiglianis watercolor of A Table-turning, or, Portrait of a Medium, 190506

Modigliani posing with one of his sculptures, 1914

Ossip Zadkine posing with his work, 1929

Picasso on the Place Ravignan, 1904

Lucien Lefebvre-Foinet on the rue Vavin

Modigliani, center, at the Dme with Adolphe Basler, during World War I

Guillaume Chron, one of Modiglianis dealers, 1915

Paul Guillaume, 1915

Modigliani, about the time he met Beatrice Hastings

Beatrice Hastings at the turn of the century

Having a drink with the troops during World War I

Beatrice Hastings, 1918

Modiglianis portrait of Diego Rivera, 1914

A sketch by Marevna of Rivera, Modigliani, and the writer Ilya Ehrenburg, during World War I

Marie Vassilieffs caf for artists during World War I

Madame Pompadour, 1915

Mose Kisling and his wife Rene with Conrad Moricand, 1920

One of a series of photographs taken by Jean Cocteau, 1916

Pierrot, 1915

The bombardment of Paris, 1918

The sculptor Lon Indenbaum, 1915

Jacques Lipchitz and his wife in Paris, c. 1920

Lunia Czechowska, 1917

Beatrice Hastings, 1924

Beatrice Hastings in later years

Vassilieffs sketch of the night she gave a party for Braque and Modigliani appeared uninvited

Modiglianis art dealer, Lopold Zborowski, 1918

Berthe Weills provocative poster for Modiglianis first one-man show at her gallery, 1917

Modigliani in Cannes in 1918, with Zborowski behind him, and his host, Osterlind

Modigliani on the Promenade des Anglais in Nice

The English artist-critic Roger Fry, c. 1925

Paulette Jourdain

The young Swedish girl Thora Klinckwstrom, 1919

Modiglianis portrait of Thora, 1919

The last photograph of Modigliani, 1919

The rue Jacob, Paris, Hpital de la Charit

The portrait of the Greek composer Mario Varvogli

The death mask

Typical of a fancy funeral of the period like the one which was accorded Modigliani

The baby Jeanne in her Victorian perambulator, aged about fifteen months

A French newspaper photograph of G. E. Modigliani fleeing with Turati, chief of the Italian Socialist Party, 1926

Eugnie Modigliani at Carlsbad, c. 1925

Jeanne Modigliani in Paris aged thirty-five, 1953

G. E. Modigliani in America, 1935

A rare photograph of Valdi and Jeanne together, postwar

The British artist John Myatt

The art historian and museum director Marc Restellini

Jeanne Modigliani, not long before her death in 1984

The studio apartment on the rue de la Grande Chaumire

The derelict apartment on the rue de la Grande Chaumire before being renovated in 2007 by Godefroy Jarzaguet

Modigliani, 1909

MODIGLIANI INTRODUCED US . When I began work on this project late in 2005 I started making plans to visit Paris and came across the name of Marc Restellini. He had been the director of a major exhibition on that artist, LAnge au Visage Grave, at the Muse du Luxembourg in 2002. The show brought together one hundred of Modiglianis worksa quarter of his total output, some never before seen in Franceand was an enormous success, attracting 600,000 visitors.

Most French museums are government run and supported, and of the private museums, none was founded by an art historian. To universal astonishment, Restellini followed up this triumph by opening a museum of his own, the Pinacothque de Paris, a year later; his first exhibition was the late work of Picasso owned by his wife Jacqueline. That was another