Modigliani: The Pure Bohemian

by June Rose

“A tragic story of art transcending life” - Kirkus Reviews Amedeo Modigliani (1884–1920) came to Paris from Italy in 1906 and each year until his death the stories about him grew wilder. He died in fitting style, in a Charity Hospital at the age of thirty-five, of tubercular meningitis, his distraught mistress nine months pregnant. Despite his dissipation, Modigliani left a large body of work, now housed in museums and private collections all over the world. Speculators profited grossly from the legend. In his lifetime a Modigliani painting would sell for £4 or £5. Five years after his death a Modigliani was sold for £4,000 and today the price of prime Modigliani paintings runs into millions. Jean Cocteau was once asked on Italian television if the artist was mad. ‘He must have been by the standards of our age,’ Cocteau replied. ‘Instead of selling his drawings he gave them away.’ Modigliani’s parents were Sephardic Jews from old families and he grew up with an innate sense of élitism. Unlike Chagall, Soutine and other Jewish artists he was to meet in Paris who came from impoverished East European villages, he knew nothing of ghetto life or of anti-Semitism. ‘I knew Modigliani well,’ wrote Maurice Vlaminck. ‘I knew him when he was hungry, I knew him when he was drunk, I knew him when he was in funds. But I never saw him lacking in grandeur or generosity.’ Modigliani defied the artistic fashions of the day, refused proudly to join any group, and yet his sense of style pervaded the Western world for years after his death. Embroiled in the hectic and cynical atmosphere of Paris in the Great War, Modigliani struggled to retain his youthful idealism and his purity of vision. June Rose’s stylish biography benefits from first-hand accounts from his family, his friends and from his first patron. She reveals the artist to be a complex and contradictory man, as intensely human and vulnerable as any one of his portraits. Praise for 'A grand portrait of renowned Italian painter and sculptor' - Publishers Weekly ‘The frankest and best biography yet’ - Daily Telegraph ‘June Rose has succeeded in re-creating the past and relating it to the present . . . a fascinating account’ - Times Literary Supplement June Rose’s interest in Modigliani was kindled by a portrait she saw when working as a young journalist in Israel. This led her to France and Italy to meet Modigliani’s surviving relatives and friends. Her previous two books, biographies of Elizabeth Fry and of Doctor James Barry (the army doctor who masqueraded as a woman) and her recent history of Barnardo’s, For the Sake of the Children, illustrate her concern with social questions. Her new book reflects a lifelong involvement with Modigliani and his work.

Genres: Art, Biography

234 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 1, 1990

About the author

June Rose spent five years exploring the private world of Dr Barnardo's, matching archive material with the memories of staff and children which is documented in her book For the Sake of the Children. Her first excursion into the charitable world, Changing Focus, was written to mark the centenary of the R.N.I.B. Since then her two acclaimed biographies, The Perfect Gentleman, the life of James Miranda Barry, a nineteenth-century woman doctor who masqueraded for forty years as a man, and Elizabeth Fry, the life of the Quaker prison reformer, reflect her concern with social questions.

Reviews

[Franz · Rating 4 out of 5]

I think that this was a very well written book worth the effort.

I was familiar with Modigliani's art (which I like very much) but knew close to nothing about Modigliani the person when I picked the book up at a library book sale. This book filled the void.

I learned that Modigliani's life is shrouded in myth, and the author did an outstanding job trying to reconcile, or separate, myth and fiction. Eyewitness accounts and personal recollections seem to differ widely, and rather than taking a specific position, the author points these difference out. However, it is clear that she thinks that Modigliani was, in spite of his shortcomings, a positive and decidedly unique character.

Mrs. Rose quotes Walter Sickert, who himself was a painter: " Modigliani had great natural gifts ... but they were not all precocious in their expression and only a profoundly serious and coherent artist could have brought them to the degree of fulfillment which he attained in the months before his death."

I also knew no specific details about Modigliani's relationship with Jeanne Hebuterne, and I was sad to learn that she committed suicide a few days after Modigliani's death - almost full-term with their second child. Mrs. Rose does not point fingers, but makes it clear that Jeanne's family (with the exception of Jeanne's brother) had never approved of their daughter's relationship with an older Jewish painter, nor have they been particularly supportive.

Mrs. Rose also paints a vivid picture of Montmatre and Montparnasse at the time, about which I had known nothing either.

One note: two reviews are reproduced on the back of the book cover - one by 'Day by Day' and one, the longer one, by 'Publisher's Weekly'. It seems to me that the reviewer of the 'Publisher's Weekly' did not read the book, as he/she writes that "[Rose deftly describes] his relationships with artists like Picasso and Chagall". This is not so.

Chagall is mentioned only three times. Chagall's name appears for the the very first time on the first page, and it reads: "Unlike Marc Chagall, Chaim Soutine and other Jewish artists he was to meet in Paris, who came from impoverished Eastern European villages, Modigliani knew nothing of ghetto life."

This does not qualify as a description of a relationship between two people, and I wish reviewers would actually read the books they are about to review ...

The second reviewer on the other hand did read the book, and I agree with this quote: "Engrossing ... A sympathetic and striking life of [the artist] ... difficult to put down."

[Christina Dongowski · Rating 3 out of 5]

It‘s a good biography as far as biographies of Modigliani go. Rose is fully aware that writing about Modigliani is essentially writing about a fabrication of the art market and the memories of scores of people who wanted to participate in the Modigliani brand. Unfortunately, Rose mainly tries to excavate the „real Modigliani“ from out of the layers of writings, movies & clichés, which at this point in time is futile,especially with a person like Modigliani who almost left no written record of his own. (Which is a boon for art dealers and forgers: creating a convincing provenance for a picture or drawing is made much easier by this. By now, Modigliani is the most forged modern artist.) The book tries to place Modigliani and his myth in the social, historical & economical context of Avantgarde art & the Paris Bohème as a form of precarious economy and budding tourist & entertainment location, but the focus on Modigliani as a person reduces Rose‘s forays into the social history of Montmartre & Montparnasse to the anecdotal. The book always gets more interesting, when one of the women that cared for Modigliani takes center stage of the biographical narrative, because they were highly articulate persons who did bother to write: mainly Eugenia Modigliani, his mother, Akhmatova, Beatrice Hastings. Hébuterne, although, is a relatively minor figure in the book, which probably has more to do with her family‘s reluctance to cooperate with Modigliani biographers than is a conscious decision by Rose. But the whole biographical project gets stuck in the „Modi, the Prince of Bohemia“-mud, because Rose is to involved in the Modigliani myth herself to get at a point from where to really get a grip on the construction of the myth and its many uses. It’s still a good starting point for anybody who wants to know more about the guy who painted the naked ladies with the long necks.

[Jennifer · Rating 2 out of 5]

I'm not sure Rose offers any more factual insight into Modigliani's character than Mick Davis' film version of him via Andy Garcia. She bases much of her story on historical hearsay, often jumbling her chronology and contradicting many of what I assume are her own presumptions. My suggestion: find yourself an art history textbook. What you'll discover in a few pages are more than Rose's biography will offer.

[Isto R. Eipäs · Rating 4 out of 5]

I've never understood Modigliani's art the way his enthusiasts do. Is it taste, hype, maybe historical appreciation? The painter and sculptor was in Paris at the right time, right before the wake of cubism. Though some of the inspiration is there, through his life Modigliani considered himself an outsider, his artistic vision something entirely different to his contemporaries'.

Could it be his charm? Certainly charisma and stories around the man have played a part in the spreading of his prestige. Same goes to the displays of a mad and teathrical yet charming artist. The portrait of the poor yet most stylish artist of early 20th century Montmartre, as other reviews point out, is muddled with exaggerated rumors and French wispers. On the other hand, Rosa's description and translated letters paint a picture of a very Italian man. Up to this entitlement and arrogant, uncompromising nature, these tendencies mix well with a bashful ignorance befit a middle-European metropolitan for whom the city is his playground. With this I mainly mean a disregard of one's environment, not one's in-group.
This is as far as I got in description, if you know the type, you know.

The only description of Modigliani's artstyle I found in the book was the grappling with 'volume and depth', which is a start.
Portrait styles are roughly divided into classical (i.e. realistic), caricature (exaggerated) and the calligraphic (abstraction/expression by line). Modigliani's style may be leaning towards the two latter types, caricaturic in capturing and augmenting the essence of its subject and calligraphic in its simplicity. People have reported Modigliani's uncanny skill of drawing subjects the same way, yet still keeping their core characteristics. Furthermore, as focus in a portrait is often directed towards the subject's face, this may be a fatal flaw in a fleshed-out Modigliani: it is the body that takes center stage, as the artist studied the 'female form' his entire life, as Rose put it.

One type of motif in Modigliani's works is the different painting of the eyes, described as 'one eye looking out, the other inward'. This sentiment becomes highly apparent when noticing the background of the works, often impressionistic in execution (what happens inside, matters).

Modigliani was highly invested in his sculpting, women and later his family with Jeanne.
His paintings are original yet easily dismissable as stylistically average, maybe even cliché in our age of unlimited art and digital perfection of thepure classical or caricaturic.

Although Modigliani died early of tuberculosis, it is debatable how his life in addiction and strained in-law relationships would have turned out. Less tragically, no doubt, but less stretched in release?
Modigliani died at his career's peak and things were looking up for him, until it all came crashing down after his fall.

[Junior7 · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fantastic account of the Artists life and times if a little scary in the telling.,

Loved the whole book though it felt a bit disjointed in parts.,What a life and true to himself. Very tragic too

[Terry · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent unbiased biography

This is a very good biography of both the man and the artist. It presents a realistic portrait of a fascinating man without resorting to myth or presenting dubious anecdotes as facts. It is also very well written and eminently readable.

[Chris Hall · Rating 4 out of 5]

Good

(Talks of a considerably more sober Modigliani than most biographies)

[Nancy · Rating 4 out of 5]

Forget what you 'think' you know about Modigliani and read this book. It is not only an insightful biography of the man and artist, but it strips away many of the myths that have arisen about his life and behavior. A very readable and thoughtful biography of a truly modern artist of a different sort. Highly recommended

[Harish P · Rating 4 out of 5]

Well researched and balanced presentation.

[Kevin Mannix · Rating 4 out of 5]

Tough read but well worth the effort!!