In the closed world of Modigliani scholarship, much more typical was the response from the Archives Légales Amedeo Modigliani, then in Paris, the website of which offered access to researchers, journalists, and the like. I wrote and sent e-mails for a year without response. I was to learn that the archive was headed by Christian Parisot, an art historian who had befriended Modigliani’s only surviving child, called Jeanne after her mother. They met when Jeanne was launched on a career as an artist; Parisot became an expert on Modigliani and gave certificates of authentication, for a fee, claiming he was her legal heir. He had in fact inherited the archive Jeanne Modigliani began about her father when she was working on a book about his life. Parisot was close to Jeanne’s younger daughter Laure, Modigliani’s granddaughter. Repeated attempts to contact either of them were met with silence.
I was more fortunate elsewhere. Thanks to another friend I was able to contact L. G. “Nick” Modigliani, a successful mining engineer who had settled in North Andover, Massachusetts. I also visited Dr. Roberto Modigliani and his wife, living on the Île de la Cité in Paris, and learned more of the family’s history.
Then I contacted Anne Modigliani, older sister of Laure, Modigliani’s other granddaughter. She was living under the care of a lifelong family friend and confidant, Jean-Pierre Haillus, in Dieulefit. During two daylong visits I learned much more about Anne, her childhood, and her parents’ lives. She and Haillus both lent numerous letters and family photographs, which are published here for the first time. The complicated effect, on Jeanne, of the fact of her father’s fame and sad fate, was described with particular sensitivity and nuance by them both. I am indebted to their generous help.
In such a quest, any biographer depends on the kindness of strangers and their help in finding others with further insights. I was fortunate in making contact with François Vitrani, a student of Jeanne’s husband, Victor Leduc, who was particularly knowledgeable about their lives on the run from the Gestapo during World War II. Through Vitrani I also met René Glodek, who served in the Résistance with Leduc and Jeanne and provided valuable information about her capture and stay in prison. Through Vitrani I was also given an introduction to Dominique Desanti, journalist, historian, and novelist, who knew Sartre, de Beauvoir, and Aragon in the rarefied Communist intellectual circles to which Leduc and Jeanne also belonged. The curious parallels between Jeanne’s life and that of the father who died when she was two years old form a kind of coda to this story. I am indebted to all these friends of Jeanne’s and particularly to the keen insights of Dominique Desanti.
When it became clear that I could not afford to make the further European trips needed to explore all the tempting possibilities, the National Endowment for the Humanities awarded me a yearlong fellowship for 2008. I am indebted to the kindly interest the former chairman, Bruce Cole, took in my work.
Thanks to this fellowship I was able to make return trips to Paris and New York and, also, a pivotal trip to Rome. There I studied at the foundation established by Modigliani’s oldest brother, the distinguished Socialist leader G. E. Modigliani, and his wife Vera. My indispensable guide was Donatella Cherubini, professor of political science at the University of Siena and biographer of G. E. Modigliani. She guided me through the fairly complicated files in the foundation and then smoothed the way for me to study at the National Archives in Rome, which contained more letters and photographs. I owe her my deepest thanks.
When your subject has been dead for almost a century you are lucky if you can even find grandchildren with some kind of family lore to pass along, much less the letters of eyewitnesses. I was lucky enough to find two children whose fathers had known Modigliani well. In the case of Noël Alexandre, he was privy to the reminiscences of his physician father. Paul Alexandre had been Modigliani’s first collector and had gathered information for the memoir he always wanted to write but never had, all of which gave his son a unique perspective. The other witness at one remove that I was fortunate to meet was the heir of Moïse Kisling, Jean, and now director of the Fondation Modigliani-Kisling. Jean Kisling also received me kindly, offered pointers about their artistic friendship, and lent little-known photographs.
My crash course on Modigliani fakes—he is one of the most imitated and copied artists in the world—was vastly informed by interviews with two former detectives of Scotland Yard, Tony Russell and Dick Ellis, who were particularly well versed in the ways European laws limit the scope of enforcement. Gil Edelson, for many years head of the Art Dealers Association in New York, shared similar reminiscences. John Myatt, a British artist who had a brief career of painting “genuine” Modiglianis before beginning his present career painting genuinely fake Modiglianis, was eloquent on the difficulties presented by that artist’s seemingly easily forged style. Here again Marc Restellini, who has seen more fake paintings and drawings than he cares to remember, is an expert in all the ways a painting, as is said in the trade, does not look “right.”
Modigliani died of tubercular meningitis, which, in the days before X-rays, could only be diagnosed by marked changes in behavior. In the absence of an actual medical record for Modigliani, and for guiding me through the likely possibilities, I am indebted to Dr. Ann Medinger, a specialist in pulmonary medicine. Dr. Medinger kindly read my work and counseled me about the symptoms and stages of this once deadly affliction.
Like Restellini, Kenneth Wayne, chief curator at the Heckscher Museum of Art in Huntington, New York, who also curated an exhibition focused around Modigliani for the Albright-Knox in Buffalo, took a generous interest in my work and made many helpful suggestions. Roy Slade, former director of the Cranbrook Academy of Art and the Corcoran Gallery, was equally selfless with suggestions and comments. Marie-Christine Joubert Thouvenin, formerly of the Wildenstein Institute in Paris, has a particular knowledge of the subject and has helped me avoid many an inadvertent error. Michael Findlay, director of the Acquavella Galleries, and Lawrence and Peggy Steigrad, other New York art dealers, also listened to my cries for help with more patience than I deserved. So did Daniel Marchesseau, director of the Musée de la Vie Romantique in Paris, whose memory for detail is formidable and whose English, impeccable.
So many people took pity on me. Colette Giraudon, formerly with the Musée Picasso and biographer of Paul Guillaume, one of Modigliani’s dealers, gave me a delicious lunch and some pertinent advice. Solange and the late Jean-Claude Kaltenbach—he was the biographer of Conrad Moricand, a friend of Moïse Kisling’s—were kindness itself as I struggled to make sense of conflicting accounts. Godefroy Jarzaguet and Alexandra Marsiglia—he restored the apartment where Modigliani lived out his last months, and they later married—were willing to describe their adventurous love affair and its happy outcome. Emmanuelle Collas, Victor Leduc’s publisher, pointed me in fruitful new directions; Mimi Gross, former wife of the artist Red Grooms, showed me an unknown Modigliani drawing; and Stark Biddle provided photographs of similarly rare drawings he had owned. Most of all I must thank Julie Martin. Her encyclopedic knowledge of the period, as I recount elsewhere in my book, is equaled only by her generosity of spirit.
For all those who also offered advice, encouragement, and concrete help, I want to extend further thanks: Georgina Adam, The Art Newspaper; Natalia Andrini, the Center for Jewish History, New York; Barbara Aikens, Judy Throm, and Wendy Hurlock Baker, the Archives of American Art; Dottore Aldo G. Ricci, sovrintendente, Archivio Centrale dello Stato, Rome; the Arts Club of Chicago; Dr. Mitchell G. Bard, executive director, American-Israeli Cooperation Enterprise; Karen K. Butler, Mellon Foundation Fellow, the Barnes Foundation; Prof. Edward Berenson, Institute of French Studies; Mme. Claude Billaud, conservateur, Bibliothèque Historique de la ville de Paris; Véronique Borgeaud and Dominique Bernauser, Bibliothèque, Musée National d’Art Moderne, Paris; Maria Morelli, archivist, Mugar Memorial Library, Boston University; Alain Bouret; Prof. Clifford Wolfman, Modernist Journals Project, Brown University; Nancy Hall-Duncan, senior curator, Bruce Museum; Rich
ard Bumgarner; Dr. Anthea Brook, Italian School, Witt Library, Courtauld Institute of Art, London; Arnaude Charvet and Hélène Mouradian, Galerie Charvet-Mouradian; Dottore Rudy Chiappini; José Emmanuel Cruz and Nicole Cruz-Altounian; Guy-Patrice Dauberville, Galerie Bernheim-Jeune, Paris; Sue Bond, Estorick Collection, London; Ira Fabri, Francesca Giampaolo, Fattori Museum, Livorno; Marina Ducrey, Fondation Félix Vallotton, Lausanne; Simonetta Fraquelli, Royal Academy, London; Liana Funaro; Joan Sutcliffe, H. P. B. Library, Toronto; Duane Chartier, International Center for Art Intelligence, Culver City; Mason Klein, Jewish Museum; Philip and Mary Kopper, Michele Van de Roer; Jean Levi; Charles Maussion; Andrew Murray, the Mayor Gallery, London; Gary Tinterow, curator, the Metropolitan Museum of Art; Elizabetta Colla, director, Fondazione Giuseppe Emanuele e Vera Modigliani, Rome; Maygene Daniels, archivist, National Gallery of Art; Maxime Nechtschein; Jerry Nedilsky; James Oglethorpe; Michael Partington; Hélène Desmazières, Céline Thouroude, Laurent Guinamard-Casati, architect, Pinacothèque de Paris; Jean Rigotard; Franckie Tacque, Salon des Indépendants, Grand Palais, Paris; Tijenia Saustier, Kalima, Paris; Margaret Scott; Patricia B. Selch; John Tancock, Impressionism and Modern Painting, Sotheby’s, New York; James Stourton and Philip Hook, Sotheby’s, London; Hilary Spurling; Galerie Paul Vallotton, Lausanne; Jeffrey Weiss, former curator of contemporary art, National Gallery of Art; Harry Cooper, curator of modern and contemporary art, National Gallery; Nicholas Fox Weber; Catherine Wyler; Deborah Ziska and Anabeth Guthrie, public relations, National Gallery of Art.
As always, I am indebted to my editor, Victoria Wilson, whose advice and understanding have guided me through many a potential pitfall, and her indispensable assistant, Carmen Johnson. This book is dedicated to my husband, Thomas Beveridge, who knows why.
CHAPTER 1
The Problem
Sigh out a lamentable tale of things,
Done long ago, and ill done.
—JOHN FORD, The Lover’s Melancholy
MY SEARCH for Amedeo Modigliani began a few years ago in the East Wing of the National Gallery of Art in Washington. I had always known about this Italian artist, who lived in Paris at the same moment as Romaine Brooks did, an American expatriate with a similar passion for portraiture, about whom I wrote. Both took singular paths but moved in different circles, to put it mildly. There were other differences. Whereas Romaine Brooks’s success in 1910 was immediate—Robert de Montesquiou called her “A Thief of Souls”—Modigliani’s achievements took decades to be appreciated. Whereas Romaine Brooks is a minor art historical footnote nowadays, Modigliani’s reputation continues to soar, to judge from the prices paid for his paintings. Romaine’s work, with its monochromatic palette, came, as Hilton Kramer wrote, at the end of the Whistler inheritance; Modigliani’s was outside every movement. Yet one could perceive a searching intelligence at work in both, infusing their images with the same rigorous intensity. I was slowly becoming as interested in him as I had been in her. Then I found his art.
In contrast to the neoclassical National Gallery created by John Russell Pope, with its elegant detailing and hushed, inviting galleries, the East Wing’s rigorous spaces of pink granite, steel, and stone, and its chasms of glass, inhibit, rather than welcome, an aesthetic response. Machines for living are one thing, habitations of the spirit another, and so I wandered one day by accident into one of its rooms off the main concourse. There I came upon eight Modigliani paintings and one sculpture, tucked away unobtrusively in a diamond-shaped room. The matte-finish walls in a grayed-off cream, the ceiling spotlights, and the industrial-weight carpeting had the negative virtue, at least, of not competing with the presence of these hidden jewels.
The collection had been assembled by Chester Dale, who, like many other great collectors, was a genius at financial prestidigitation, was small, large-featured, and plain. Having a sense of style, he compensated for this handicap with flamboyant hats, heavy and expensive rings, and an indefatigable willingness to offer himself as a model to such artists as George Bellows and Diego Rivera. Perhaps the most telling portrait that resulted was by Salvador Dalí, who depicted the collector looking out complacently from the frame, bearing a solemn and unmistakable resemblance to his poodle. By then Dale was acquiring paintings as relentlessly as he had once pursued stock options, thanks to his first wife, Maud. She nagged and prodded her husband to buy Modiglianis by the dozen at a moment, in the early 1920s, when they could almost be had in job lots.
Chester Dale, c. 1930 (image credit 1.1)
Maud Dale, 1927 (image credit 1.2)
The Modigliani room was being patrolled by a taut-looking, gum-chewing guard with a Fu Manchu moustache and a wary expression. When asked how much he liked being in that room, he said, “I don’t.” A few people were wandering through, a couple speaking Russian and a short Japanese man in glasses and a black shirt. I stopped first beside Modigliani’s portrait of Monsieur Deleu, painted in 1916, which I had seen in reproduction but which I could almost say I had never seen, since the work itself was so startlingly different. Instead of what looked, from picture books, to be an uninteresting study of a heavyset, black-haired man with a pursed mouth in flat planes of gray, black, and russet, this was a revelation.
The expression, at first glance a caricature, was in fact full of dexterously applied details, such as a touch of light in the left eye, a shadow under an eyebrow, and the play of volumes around the mouth and chin. What had seemed superficial was in fact full of nuance. Was he frowning slightly, or mulling a point, or drawing back from life itself?
The sense of enigmatic intent extended to the dappled light and shade on the sitter’s jacket and the close attention given to what is usually least considered, i.e., the background. Each stroke of the brush seemed to have been placed with a feeling of finality, even inevitability. Here was a powerful sensibility at work, at once assured, vital, and subtle, qualities which no reproduction could adequately convey.
I had the same sensation of seeing a work as if for the first time with the portrait hanging beside it, Madame Amédée (Woman with a Cigarette), painted two years later. This depiction of a heavyset woman in a black dress, hand on hip and a cigarette dangling between her fingers, gives little clue in reproduction to the force of her personality at a distance of five feet. That air of disdain, those raised brows, the puckered mouth—could there be a hint of self-doubt in her pose? The impression is reinforced by the artist’s sloping floor and the realization that his model is not actually sitting on her chair but floating above it. Hauteur, insouciance, pretense—all this melts before the penetrating gaze of the artist, who has made his feelings known with such delicate irony.
If it is clear that Modigliani disdained his subject, the same cannot be said for Gypsy Woman with Baby. This first attempt at a mother-and-child theme, painted in 1919, soon after Modigliani became a father himself, could not be more of a contrast. Instead of the heavy outlines and uncompromising pose, here are pastels that seem to float across the canvas. Fragile grays, going from blue to green, are harmoniously intertwined within outlines that have been softened and blurred, the paint broken up into thumb-like patches of color. The mother, hardly more than a girl, with her high coloring, skewed nose, pretty mouth, and sweet, lost look, presses her baby against her as if clinging to a life raft. The effect is poetic as well as endearing; no wonder it was one of the first Modiglianis Maud Dale persuaded her husband to buy. As a final, masterful touch, the artist has added, in his subject’s otherwise neat coiffure, a single escaping wisp of hair.
I arrived at length at Modigliani’s portrait of Chaim Soutine, who was still only a boy when he escaped from Russia and came to Paris to study art in 1913, meeting Modigliani shortly thereafter. Soutine, one of eleven children of cruel parents, barely escaped with his life. Penniless, crude, inarticulate, he was befriended by Modigliani, who painted his portrait a number of times. Here he is, staring out of the frame, a seated figure with tumbling hair and ill-matched clothes, his hands placed awkwardly in his la
p, his eyes half closed and peasant nose spreading across his expressionless face. He is ugly, and yet. As Kenneth Silver wrote in The Circle of Montparnasse, “Modigliani manages … to convey a kind of poetic beauty in his sitter, that special brand of idealization for which he is justly famous.”
This same ability can be found in Modigliani’s chef d’oeuvre, Nude on a Blue Cushion, one of the painter’s series of grand horizontals, painted three years before his death. Whatever I had seen or remembered of this work from catalogs was again a pale reflection of the work’s power at close range; this one, in a frame of dull gold with inserts of black, dominated the room. The girl’s limbs are softly rounded, her thighs full, and the outlines of her breasts delineated with a fine black line, nipples blushes of pink. She is half lying, half-raised on one arm, and a hand touches her face, which is turned toward the viewer with a smile. This is a girl who wants to be liked and is not at all sure of the reception, as is suggested by fastidious painterly details, such as the light and shade around the forehead, a touch of pink beside the nose, and the hint of a line under one eye. At close range, one discovers so many of these unexpected touches: the smidgen of blue on a wrist which picks up the color of the cushion, the patch of pink on a knee, the dot at the corner of an eye, and the same judiciously considered background.
All master portraits have a sense of inevitability about them—one thinks of the personalities so brilliantly memorialized by John Singer Sargent—but as I looked around the room it seemed that more was being said than a probing of personality alone, or even painterly experiments in compositional techniques and simplified forms. There had to be a clue to the riddle. I looked again at the single piece of sculpture, a limestone head of a woman, standing on a pedestal in one corner of the room. The head, carved from a rectangular piece of stone, was consequently elongated, its nose radically long, mouth barely indicated, eyes enigmatic and impassive. One thought, as Bernard Dorival wrote, of the religious power found in Khmer and Chinese sculptures. Monumentality—otherworldliness—the transcendental—such thoughts rose to the surface and whirled around in my head. As I knew, an interior stir was the first sign that one’s point of view would be turned upside down and transformed by a new experience. An artist capable of inciting such thoughts had to be something of a magician. And yet, was this someone one would have to know well in order to know him at all? I had to find out.
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