Spotlight
In Spotlight, we will periodically present short essays on the latest research findings and overlooked aspects of Modigliani’s life and circle. While the artist’s name is readily recognized, and volumes of literature have been written about him and his work, there remains a surprising number of overlooked areas in his biography. This is particularly true of some of his subjects and early collectors of his work, many of whom were marginalized over time because of their gender or by anti-Semitic forces that culminated with World War II. Spotlight will focus on these individuals—the models, collectors, friends, and lesser-known art dealers in Modigliani’s circle—whose stories enrich the provenance of his works and, at the same time, contribute to the scholarship on the artist.
“Peintres d’aujourd’hui”
Modigliani at the Galerie Paul Guillaume
The poet Max Jacob introduced Paul Guillaume to Modigliani probably in late 1914. Guillaume then became the artist’s primary dealer and took credit for Modigliani’s shift from sculpture to painting. The artist duly produced four portraits of his new agent, three of which are dated on the front: 1915, September 1915, and 1916, roughly documenting the period of their alliance. Curiously, though he acquired a substantial number of paintings from the artist during this time, Guillaume never organized a solo exhibition for Modigliani.
How Do You Solve a Problem Like Modigliani?
A persistent problem continues to surround the legacy of Amedeo Modigliani, one that emerged soon after his untimely death in January of 1920 at the age of 35. The ensuing acceleration in demand for the artist’s paintings was almost immediately met with a steady influx of forgeries, highlighting the necessity of a formal catalogue of Modigliani’s complete body of work. No less than five different versions have been produced, but none so far has satisfactorily resolved the extent of the artist’s oeuvre.
Modigliani on the Move
David M. Challis
Analysing the geographical location of the 156 oil paintings recorded by Ambrogio Ceroni in his 1958 catalogue raisonné gives unexpected insights into the movement and increasingly favourable reception of Modigliani’s oeuvre in the first half of the twentieth century. While Ceroni’s work has been critiqued for its inaccuracies and omissions, the paintings recorded in the catalogue provide a solid case study for understanding where the vast majority of Modigliani’s work was located in 1958. The catalogue shows that in the thirty-eight-year period since the artist’s death in 1920, more than half of his recorded oil paintings had departed from their point of origin in France. These paintings were now located in art collections across a remarkably diverse range of countries, including the United States of America, Italy, Switzerland, the United Kingdom, Germany, Canada, Brazil, and Argentina