Modigliani: The Melancholy Angel

Opening at the Musee du Luxembourg in Paris from 25 October 2002 through 2 March 2003, the exhibition will present a wide selection of Modigliani's work including paintings, sculptures, drawings, and never-before-seen masterpieces, selected from major international museums and private collections. The show will be a comprehensive survey of Modigliani's career, from his earliest days as a painter to his premature death in 1920. Amadeo Modigliani was one of the greatest Italian artists of the early 1900s.

Born in Livorno in 1884, he moved to Paris in 1906, during the explosion of Fauvism and Cubism, which had a determining impact on his artistic career. Here Modigliani befriended Toulouse-Lautrec, Gauguin, Van Gogh, Cezanne and Brancusi. His friendship with Constantin Brancusi kindled Modigliani's interest in sculpture, in which he would continue his very personal idiom, distinguished by strong linear rhythms, simple elongated forms, and verticality. In Paris Modigliani immersed himself in cafe and nightlife, developing a dissolute lifestyle that enhanced his reputation as a bohemian but eventually ruined his life. As his health began to fail around 1914 he turned to painting almost exclusively, producing some of his best works. His interest in African masks and sculpture remains evident, especially in the treatment of the sitter's faces: flat and mask-like, with almond eyes, twisted noses, pursed mouths, and elongated necks. As his health began to fail around 1914 he turned to painting almost exclusively. Leopold Zborowski became his exclusive representative and moved Modigliani to the south of France in early 1918. Paris had become too unstable because of the fighting during World War I. It was here that he met Jeanne Hebuterne who became his mistress. By spring, they were back in Paris. Jeanne gave birth to a daughter in the fall and his works were beginning to sell. But, his health took a turn for the worse. He died on January 24, 1920, of tubercular meningitis. The following day Jeanne, nine months pregnant with her second child, threw herself from a window of her parents home and died.