Modi & his muses

Amedeo Modigliani was a maverick painter and sculptor whose posthumous legend became almost as famous as Vincent Van Goghs, observes Giridhar Khasnis

Early this month — on February 6, 2013 — an oil painting showing an elegant woman with a slender neck came up with an estimate of £16 – 22 million at the Christie’s Impressionist/Modern Evening Sale, King Street, London; it got sold for £26,921,250. The picture which measured 92 cm by 54 cm and was described as ‘a strikingly modern work of art, an idealised portrait of the artist’s lover’, was painted by Amedeo Modigliani way back in 1919; its title: Jeanne Hébuterne au chapeau.

Looking back, one recalled that the same Hébuterne had met a tragic end on January 26, 1920 when she had thrown herself out of a window in Paris and fallen down from the fifth floor killing herself and her unborn child; she was barely 21. A night before her suicide, Jeanne’s lover and partner, Modigliani (nickname ‘Modi’) had died of tuberculosis. The maverick painter and sculptor whose posthumous legend became almost as famous as Vincent van Gogh’s, was 36.

Modigliani’s life — as pointed out by art historians and biographers — was marked not only by precocious talent but also debauchery, arrogant conduct, relentless drunkenness and violent public hostility. Life with Modi was not easy for the young, beautiful and serene Jeanne who had to bear his abuses. He promised to marry her but never did; he carried on liaison with other women quite openly. None of these had, however, stopped Jeanne from loving him. On his part, Modigliani painted a number of portraits of Jeanne which, according to critics, are among his most refined and accomplished works.

It was during the Carnival of 1917 that Modigliani had met Jeanne, then a 19-year-old student from the Academie Colarossi. Despite her conventional upbringing and defying family’s protestations, she started living with him; and remained his constant companion till his death. In November 1918, she gave birth to his daughter.

Modigliani’s creative faculties and artistic output came to be well recognised during his lifetime. His relatively short working life was enriched by associations with  Paul Gauguin, Van Gogh, Paul Cezanne, and sculptor Constantin Brâncusi who encouraged him to carve directly in stone. Sadly, excessive use of substances and increased public misdeeds took a deathly hold of his life and isolated him from others.

Modigliani’s final days were pathetic. When the doctor saw him on his bed amidst empty bottles and half-opened cans of sardines, he declared the case as hopeless.

Jeanne’s funeral was simple and quiet; a few family members and friends were in attendance on a cold, gray sky in a cemetery on the outskirts of Paris. Contrastingly, Modigliani’s last march was a public and princely affair with a large crowd of artists and friends following the hearse. He was buried among the cultural elite in the celebrity cemetery.

Many lovers

A handsome and attractive man, Modigliani could lure women easily and had many affairs during his short life. Before he met Jeanne, he had serious relationship with two women: Russian modernist poet Anna Akhmatova from 1907-14, and English poetess Beatrice Hastings from 1914-16. Both of them figured in his paintings repeatedly.

Anna was a charismatic beauty with elongated, sensual body. She not only struck a unique chord with Modigliani but even influenced the course of his art. She was portrayed by him in at least 20 paintings, including several nudes. In her memoirs, Anna recalled how poor and lonely Modigliani was, and how in the Jardin du Luxembourg they sat on a bench and not, as was usual, on chairs since one had to pay for them. “He complained neither about his poverty nor about the lack of recognition, both of which were clearly apparent. I never heard him mention the name of an acquaintance or a friend, and I never heard him joke. It astonished me that Modigliani could find ugly people beautiful and stick by this opinion. I thought even then that he clearly saw the world through different eyes to ours.” Anna said that Modigliani was unlike anyone in the world: “He had the head of Antinoos, and in his eyes was a golden gleam. I shall never forget his voice.”

In contrast to Anna, the South African born British poet and critic Beatrice Hastings was a fiery character. Arrogant and proud, she formed a tempestuous and turbulent relationship with Modigliani, which was boosted by alcohol and hashish. For her, Modigliani was “a complex character; a swine and a pearl.” She recalled their meeting in 1914 at a crémerie. “I sat opposite him. Hashish and brandy. Not at all impressed. Didn’t know who he was. He looked ugly, ferocious and greedy. Met him again at the Café Rotonde. He was shaved and charming. Raised his cap with a pretty gesture, blushed and asked me to come and see his work. And I went. He had no respect for anyone except Picasso and Max Jacob.”

The relationship between Hastings and Modigliani came apart violently. Hastings  later on became a cancer patient and eventually killed herself with gas from a domestic cooker in 1943.

Anna lived a comparatively long life with many ups and downs and went on to become an important poet of her generation. When she died in 1966, aged 76, hundreds of admirers attended the memorial ceremonies in Moscow and Leningrad.

Artistic appetite

Jeanne Hébuterne’s short life had its own artistic side but it was only in October 2000 — 80 years after her death — that her paintings came to be shown in public for the first time ever. Critics saw Modigliani’s influence on her works, but appreciated her identity as an artist in her own right.

Modigliani’s popularity soared after his death. His exhibitions draw massive crowds and his paintings have commanded astronomical prices at auctions. “The art audience loves a miserable loser who, after death, succeeds in a big way,” wrote Robert Hughes in Time Magazine in 2004. “The last Modigliani retrospective held in New York was in 1951 at the Museum of Modern Art, and clearly the appetite for him has grown since then.”

In May 2010, Modigliani’s Jeanne Hébuterne au collier (1916 - 17) was sold for $13.80 million at Sotheby’s auction in New York. Months later, in November 2010, his Nu assis sur un divan (La Belle Romaine) created a record at another Sotheby’s auction when it got a whopping $69 million.

In the early morning of May 20, 2010, five paintings worth about $134 million were stolen from the Museum of Modern Art in Paris; one of them was ‘Woman with Fan’ (1919) by Modigliani (other four paintings were by Pablo Picasso, Henri Matisse, Georges Braque and Fernand Leger). The suspect, a 34-year-old watch repairman, Jonathan B, claimed that in a panic, he had thrown the paintings into a wayside garbage bin; that indeed meant that the paintings had been destroyed along with the rest of that day’s trash.