We are thrilled to announce that The Modigliani Initiative will be presenting at the Annual CAA (College Art Association) conference in Chicago in February 2024. In the session titled Catalogue Raisonné Scholarship Today, Leslie Koot and Julia May Boddewyn will present:

Modigliani’s Legacy: Beyond the Catalogue Raisonné

While Amedeo Modigliani (1884–1920) ranks among the most popular artists of the early twentieth century, the traditional catalogue raisonné model has not satisfactorily resolved the full extent of his oeuvre, over a century after his death.

An accelerated demand for the artist’s work which began soon afer his premature passing, and the accompanying rise in prices, fueled an influx of forgeries onto the market, highlighting the necessity of a formal catalogue raisonné.

To date, five different catalogues have been produced, but only one—published in 1970 by Ambrogio Ceroni—is accepted by scholars and the art market today, despite its widely acknowledged inaccuracies and omissions. In large part this is because the others have been largely discredited for their inclusion of numerous doubtful works.

Ongoing concerns regarding lack of transparent inclusion criteria have left the art world skeptical of any new efforts that follow the same opaque formula of previous Modigliani catalogues. The Modigliani Initiative proposes an alternative solution to the traditional catalogue raisonné.

We will discuss our fact-based approach to studying archival documentation and how this guides our reconsideration of what is known about Modigliani’s paintings. We will present several case studies that demonstrate our discoveries, facilitated by the comprehensive online database the organization maintains. Our goal is to work with scholars across disciplines to participate in a collaborative and critical reexamination of Modigliani’s works. We believe that a transparent process will offer a credible model for constructing a much-needed consensus on a larger, accepted body of the artist’s work.