Amedeo Modigliani
 Paul Guillaume, Novo Pilota, 1915
 Oil on cardboard mounted on cradled
 plywood
 105.0 x 75.0cm
 Musée de l'Orangerie, Paris
 © Photo RMN - Daniel Arnaudet

Modigliani was born in Italy of Jewish descent. Arriving in Paris in 1906, he quickly absorbed a number of influences which shaped his mature style. He settled in Montmartre where he came to know the bohemian artists and writers living in the tenement building known as the Bateau-Lavoir. Although he shared the avant-garde artists' fascination with l'art négre, or African art, he remained independent of Cubism and Fauvism. After a meeting with the sculptor Constantin Brancusi in 1909, Modigliani furthered his ambitions in stone-carving, a medium that gave scope to his interest in African sculpture. Unfortunately the dust produced by stone-cutting damaged his already weakened lungs and he returned to painting and drawing, producing works with a decidedly sculptural appearance that maintained the linear grace of fifteenth-century Italian painting.

© copyright 2001, The National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne Australia