Abandonded Bust

Somebody has abandoned the bust of Amedeo Modigliani on the sidewalk of Via Marradi.
Qualcuno ha abbandonato il busto di Amedeo Modigliani sul marciapiede di via Marradi.
Please put it back where it belongs...
Per favore rimettetelo dove dovrebbe stare...

Celebrating a Prank

In 1909 Amedeo Modigliani was briefly back in Livorno from Paris to try himself as a sculptor: an old local legend says that his first tentative works were so disparaged by his artist friends that, in a bout of rage, he threw a cartload of sculpted stones in the nearby Fosso Reale.

Thirty years ago the usual brilliant minds decided to check if the legend was true dredging the part of the canal nearer to Modigliani's studio, with the hope of recovering some of his “lost” works.

After a few uneventful days, they found not one, but three “heads” and the story went around the world. Art historians and critics flocked to validate the artifacts which were also put on display in an exhibition.

We all know now, and many already knew then, that the “heads” were all fakes: one made by three young students and the others by an artist-dockworker. The world laughed, but the brilliant minds kept denying the evidence for a long time.

In the 30th anniversary of the events a new generation of brilliant minds decided to waste a few tens of thousands of Euro in an exhibition about the prank, one of the many misguided ways to attract the interest of the tourists. By the way, I liked the displays and it was one of the very few occasions to get inside the Fortezza Vecchia without a reservation.

See also: Modigliani's Heads - Modì's Heads - Fortezza Vecchia
Search labels: Modigliani - Fortezza Vecchia
External links: Three Students and a Dockworker Put Their Heads Together and Confound the Art World (People)

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Homage to Friends from Montparnasse

In 1961 Marie Vorobieff, known as Marevna, painted “Homage to Friends from Montparnasse”, a Cubist recollection of the artists of the Parisian scene of the 1910s. We can see (top left to right) Diego Rivera, Ilya Ehrenburg, Chaim Soutine, Amedeo Modigliani, Jeanne Hébuterne, Max Jacob, Léopold Zborowski. On the bottom left sits the artist herself with her daughter Marika Rivera, on the right Moïse Kisling with a cat.

External links: Diego Rivera - Ilya Ehrenburg - Chaim Soutine - Amedeo Modigliani - Jeanne Hébuterne - Max Jacob - Léopold Zborowski - Marie Vorobieff - Marika Rivera - Moïse Kisling (Wikipedia)
Search labels: Modigliani

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The Beggar Woman

“The Beggar Woman” is the other painting by Modigliani which was almost certainly painted in Livorno in the summer of 1909. Dedicated to the friend Jean Alexandre, it was shown at the 1910 Salon.

“The Beggar Woman”, 1909
Oil on canvas, 46x38cm
Private collection

“Modigliani may have painted one other picture while he was at home in Livorno. ‘The Beggar Woman’ - the companion to ‘The Beggar’ - before he left for Paris in the autumn of 1909, sadly and hopefully.”

(June Rose, Modigliani - The Pure Bohemian)

“Perhaps the most fully realized of his portraits at this period is ‘The Beggar Woman’, an example of the ‘cool purposefulness’ and economy of means that Modigliani was beginning to display. The lowered eyes, droop of the head, and particular set of the mouth speak volumes about the misery and pride of this anonymous daughter of the people.”

(Meryle Secrest, Modigliani: A Life)

See also: The Beggar of Livorno
External links: Amedeo Modigliani - Jeanne Modigliani - Salon (Wikipedia)
Search labels: Modigliani

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The Beggar of Livorno

Not much is left of what Amedeo Modigliani painted in Livorno, but “The Beggar of Livorno” is surely one of these works. In the summer of 1909 he was back in his hometown and it may be interesting to know how Jeanne Modigliani, in her biography of her father, tell us the story of this portrait à la Cézanne.

“The Beggar of Livorno”, 1909
Oil on canvas, 66x52.7cm
Private collection

“The diary mentions that they had moved to Via Giuseppe Verdi and that, around 1909, they had received a legacy from someone called Castelnuovo. Moreover, in three letters that are undated but that refer to Castelnuovo's complicated will and speak of the baths at Pancaldi, Eugenia writes to Margherita: ‘Dedo is out of the house all day with a friend who has a studio.’ (This was Romiti.) ‘Caterina comes in by the day. Dedo and Laura are writing articles together, but they are too much up in the clouds for me.’ And at the end: ‘Dedo has seen the pictures, which he says are worthless, and also the famous statue.’ The statue was a late-Renaissance copy of a Greek Hermes, the pictures were a pastoral scene attributed to Salvator Rosa, a seascape by Tempesta, and a seventeenth-century Neapolitan picture of a beggar. In the famous Beggar of Leghorn, the watered-down Cézannesque structure reminds me of the Neapolitan composition; it seems to be a modern interpretation of an old picture and not an authentic portrait done from a model.”

(Jeanne Modigliani, Modigliani: Man and Myth)

External links: Amedeo Modigliani - Jeanne Modigliani (Wikipedia)
Search labels: Modigliani

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Piazza Amedeo Modigliani

During the events of last week, dedicated to Modigliani, some enthusiasts renamed Piazza Attias.

External links: Cronaca di “Street Art meets Modigliani”: Mostra e LivePainting (Occhio Livorno, in Italian)
Search labels: Modigliani

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Modigliani in Venice

Plaque on the facade of a building on Fondamenta San Basegio, where Amedeo Modigliani had his studio in Venice in 1905. The quotation is from a letter to the Livornese painter and friend Oscar Ghiglia.

“Da Venezia ho ricevuto gli insegnamenti più preziosi della vita;
da Venezia sembra di uscirmene adesso come accresciuto dopo un lavoro..”
(From Venice I received the most valuable lessons of life,
on leaving Venice I feel like I am grown after a work..)

“Modigliani moved to Venice in the spring of 1903 and enrolled in the Scuola Libera del Nudo at the Accademia delle Belle Arti in May. All his life Modigliani made friends easily, and he was making contact with a distinguished group: Umberto Boccioni, the Futurist painter and sculptor, Fabio Mauroner, with whom he shared a studio in the San Barnaba quarter and whose interests would include sculpture, painting, the graphic arts, and art criticism; as well as artists Mario Crepet, Cesare Mainella, Guido Marussig, Ardengo Soffici, and Guido Cadorin. Such encounters with the cream of intellectual and artistic life in Venice suggest assiduous cultivation. Perhaps it was in Venice that Modigliani learned the pivotal rule for the up-and-coming young artist, the right cafés at the right moment. In Venice it was the Florian, which never closed. Meanwhile he occasionally went to life classes, relying on his eye and the lessons to be had by daily visits to the great museums, studying the Bellinis and Carpaccios with concentration.”

(Meryle Secrest, Modigliani: A Life, 2011)

External links: The Misunderstood Death of Modigliani (The New York Times) - Meryle Secrest (Wikipedia)
Search labels: Modigliani

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Modì's Heads

In 1909 Amedeo Modigliani, back in Livorno from Paris, was testing his skills as sculptor working on some stone heads. His friends weren't enthusiasts of the results and made fun of him: legend has it that the angry artist threw his works in the waters of the nearby Fosso Reale (Royal Canal).

In 1984 Livorno was in the process of commemorating the hundredth anniversary of the birth of Amedeo Modigliani, when it was suggested to dredge that part of canal to see if the above mentioned heads could be recovered and eventually put on display.

[Photo by unknown author]

After a few days of work, three crudely sculpted heads were found in the canal and the story made the news around the world. Noted art historians recognized the sculptures as authentic and our city basked for a while in the glory of the recovery of these lost masterpieces.

[Photo by unknown author]

Then three students said that they had carved one of the heads with a Black & Decker, while a dockworker released a video showing that he was the author of the other two. The whole world laughed, Pisans had a field day, and real heads rolled. The fake ones quietly found their way into some warehouse.
Now some brilliant minds want to waste 45.000 Euro of public money to display the three fakes and the story of the hoax. Evidently, it would not be enough to put them in a room somewhere with a simple explicative panel.

External links: Modigliani Dredgers Find 2 Heads in Canal (The New York Times)
- The Modigliani Practical Joke of Livorno (Best Hoaxes and Pranks)
- Fake Modigliani heads get a Museum of their own – thirty years after the controversial hoax (ArtIsLife)

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Rothko & Modigliani

Mark Rothko by Mart, Scali del Refugio

Amedeo Modigliani by Mart, off Viale Amerigo Vespucci, Antignano

See also: Almost Bicycle Art - Art Is a Disease - Mart - Jeanne Hébuterne

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My Name Is 5074

“Noi abbiamo dei diritti diversi dagli altri perché abbiamo dei bisogni diversi che ci mettono al di sopra della loro morale”

(We have different rights from the others because we have different needs that put ourselves above their moral standards)

Fifty Seventy-Four, a “street artist” who uses a numeric alias, is advertising himself with posters of an unaware Modigliani. Perhaps Amedeo should sue, but obviously can't and probably wouldn't.

External links: 5074 (official space) - 5074 (In Italian)

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Almost Bicycle Art

“Art is a disease”, a mural and two bicycles in “Via Santa Caterina”.

Search labels: bicycle art
External links: Bicycle Art

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Happy Birthday Modì

Let us take inspiration from our stay in Paris to celebrate today the 128th anniversary of the birth of the painter Amedeo Modigliani (Livorno, 12 July 1884 – Paris, 24 January 1920).Amedeo Modigliani, Reclining Nude on White Pillow, 1917
Oil on canvas, 60 x 92cm
Stuttgart, Staatsgalerie Stuttgart

Modigliani's first and only solo exhibition was in 1917 at the Berthe Weill gallery in Paris. Most of the paintings exhibited there were nudes. The police of a city accustomed to considerably more erotic images declared the nudes a public nuisance and closed the exhibition.

(Masterpieces of Western Art by Ingo F. Walther, Robert Suckale, Taschen, 2002)

Search labels: Modigliani
External links: Amedeo Modigliani (Wikipedia)

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Modigliani Brothers

The bust of the respected politician Giuseppe Emanuele Modigliani and the one of his brother, the world famous painter Amedeo Modigliani, are placed on different sides of the “Villa Fabbricotti” building. For once, we are pleased to reunite them...

Search labels: Modigliani
See also: Modigliani's Heads - Amedeo Modigliani - Modigliani's Tomb - Modigliani in Paris
External links: Amedeo Modigliani (Wikipedia)

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Modigliani in Paris

In the 15th arrondissement, not far from the Parc André Citroën, rue Modigliani is not an impressive street for Parisian standards.It has a nice fountain called “fontaine des Polypores” (Polypores fountain), also commonly known as Modigliani fountain. It is a 1983 work by the sculptor Jean-Yves Le Chevalier.

Search labels: Modigliani
External links: Amedeo Modigliani (Wikipedia)

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Amedeo & Pietro

Amedeo Modigliani got a quite good location for his bust, at the end of the main avenue inside the park of “Villa Fabbricotti”.A few steps on the right, the poor Pietro Mascagni wasn't so lucky, he feels dirty and is overwhelmed by the graffiti in background.

Search labels: Modigliani
External links: Amedeo Modigliani (Wikipedia)

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Modigliani's Tomb

[Photos by Trillian]

This is not Livorno, but the resting place of one of its most famous sons, Amedeo Modigliani, in the Père Lachaise Cemetery in Paris.When in Paris, we often visit Père Lachaise and never miss a few moments at Modigliani's tomb.

In 1920, after not hearing from him for several days, his neighbor checked on the family and found Modigliani in bed delirious and holding onto Hébuterne who was nearly nine months pregnant. They summoned a doctor, but little could be done: Modigliani was dying of the then-incurable disease tubercular meningitis.
Modigliani died on January 24, 1920. There was an enormous funeral, attended by many from the artistic communities in Montmartre and Montparnasse.
Hébuterne was taken to her parents' home, where, inconsolable, threw herself out of a fifth-floor window two days after his death, killing herself and her unborn child. Modigliani was interred at the Père Lachaise Cemetery.
Hébuterne was buried at the Cimetière de Bagneux near Paris, and it was not until 1930 that her embittered family allowed her body to be moved to rest beside Modigliani. A single tombstone honors them both. His epitaph reads: “Struck down by Death at the moment of glory”. Hers reads: “Devoted companion to the extreme sacrifice”.

(From “Amedeo Modigliani”, Wikipedia)

Search labels: Modigliani
External links: Amedeo Modigliani (Wikipedia)

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Modigliani's Heads

This is the “Fosso Reale”, just in front of where I live now, and exactly where 25 years ago took place one of the greatest hoaxes in the history of Italian art. Four high-school students and a dockworker started what was intended as a no more than a practical joke, ending with an earthquake that shattered the reputations of many art critics. If you do not know, or simply do not remember well what happened, please check this link: Modigliani’s Heads (“noresize”, October 25, 2007).The art historian Federico Zeri, alone, proclaimed that the sculptures were so “immature” that even if they were authentic, Modigliani had been right about throwing them away. I don't know if one day someone will try to dredge the “Fosso” again, but I'm sure that they'll find dozens of heads. Here, in 1984, everybody who could handle a chisel or a power tool and was able to lay hands on a piece of stone, quickly made his personal “Modigliani's head” and threw it in those water.

(Fake heads image from: La “beffa” dell'estate 1984)

Search labels: Modigliani
External links: Amedeo Modigliani (Wikipedia)

Amedeo Modigliani

Amedeo Modigliani was born on July 12, 1884, when Livorno was a thriving commercial port and also a refuge for those persecuted for their religion. His great-great-grandfather was a Jew who had immigrated to Livorno in the 18th century as a religious refugee. His father Flaminio, a money-changer, went bankrupt, forcing his family to live in poverty. Amedeo's birth probably saved the family from certain ruin because an ancient law stated that creditors could not seize the bed of a pregnant woman or a mother with a newborn child. When bailiffs entered Modigliani's home, with his mother Eugenia just into labour, the family piled their most valuable assets on top of her's bed, saving most of them.
The bust in the first photo is placed at the main entrance of Villa Fabbricotti, a park which also hosts the main local library. The plaque is outside the still existing house in Via Roma, now a private museum, and says:

Here received the gifts of
life, genius, virtue
the painter
Amedeo Modigliani
The Municipality of Livorno
in the 75th anniversary of the birth
July 12, 1959

Life and genius are certain, but it seems absurd to me to call our Amedeo a man of “virtue”...

Search labels: Modigliani
External links: Amedeo Modigliani (Wikipedia)