The Unknown Modigliani

The Unknown Modigliani

This landmark book presents 450 masterful drawings by Amedeo Modigliani (1884-1920) that will forever alter the Italian artist’s reputation. These drawings have never before been published or exhibited; they have been in storage for more than seventy years and are the only evidence of the artist’s work during the crucial years of 1906-14, until now the most obscure period in Modigliani’s life. 

The drawings were purchased and collected by the French physician Paul Alexandre, to whom the study of modern art is greatly indebted. When Modigliani arrived in Paris in 1906, Alexandre was the artist’s closest friend and only patron, regularly buying the artist’s work. These drawings-academic sketches, theater drawings, caryatids, sculpture heads, nudes, portraits, and studies for paintings-clearly show that Modigliani had developed his mature style much earlier than previously believed, and that he became a convert to modern art from the moment he arrived in Paris.

The aristocratic Modigliani refused to involve himself with anything other than his art. This meant he often went hungry; the sometimes daily purchases by Paul Alexandre were his principal source of income. The doctor kept a record of what he bought; thus today his collection, which also includes previously unpublished letters, manuscripts, and photographs of Modigliani’s fellow artists, among them Constantin Brancusi, is the most important authenticated source of Modigliani’s work. 

Dr. Alexandre, who died in 1968, always indented to write a book about his friend and patient to correct the myth that his premature death in 1920 was the result of abusing drugs and absinthe. Alexandre believed that Modigliani was not nearly as dissolute as legend would have it and that, in fact, the artist had enormous energy and an irrepressible urge to create. Here, historian Noël Alexandre, the son of Paul Alexandre, has written a revealing biography based on his father’s memories and documents from his father’s estate, which include a ten-page letter from Modigliani’s mother to Alexandre, I which she describes in detail her son’s youth in Livorno. 

This compelling volume will revolutionize all previous conceptions regarding Modigliani’s accomplishments. It serves as the catalogue for an exhibition of the drawings that will travel to major museums worldwide.