Amedeo Modigliani facts for kids

Amedeo Modigliani
Amedeo Modigliani
	Amedeo Modigliani
Born	12 July 1884; Livorno, Tuscany, Italy
Died	24 January 1920 (aged 35); Paris, France
Nationality	Italian
Field	Painting, sculpture
Training	Accademia di Belle Arti, Florence
Works	Redheaded Girl in Evening Dress; Madame Pompadour; Jeanne Hébuterne in Red Shawl

Amedeo Clemente Modigliani (12 July 1884 – 24 January 1920) was an Italian Jewish painter and sculptor who worked mainly in France. He is known for portraits and nudes in a modern style characterized by long faces, necks, and figures that were not received well during his lifetime but later found acceptance.

Modigliani is known to have drawn and painted from a very early age and spent his youth in Italy, where he studied the art of antiquity and the Renaissance.

Modigliani worked in Micheli's Art School from 1898 to 1900. Among his colleagues in that studio would have been Llewelyn Lloyd, Giulio Cesare Vinzio, Manlio Martinelli, Gino Romiti, Renato Natali, and Oscar Ghiglia.

Here his earliest formal artistic instruction took place in an atmosphere full of the study of the styles and themes of 19th-century Italian art. In his earliest Parisian work, traces of this influence, and that of his studies of Renaissance art, can still be seen.

In 1906 he moved to Paris, where he came into contact with such artists as Pablo Picasso and Constantin Brâncuși. By 1912 Modigliani was exhibiting highly stylized sculptures with Cubists of the Section d'Or group at the Salon d'Automne.

During his early years in Paris, Modigliani worked at a furious pace. He was constantly sketching, making as many as a hundred drawings a day. However, many of his works were lost or destroyed or left behind in his frequent changes of address, or given to girlfriends who did not keep them.

Modigliani's work includes paintings and drawings. From 1909 to 1914 he devoted himself mainly to sculpture. His main subject was portraits and full figures, both in the images and in the sculptures.

At the outset of World War I, Modigliani tried to enlist in the army but was refused because of his poor health.

He died on January 24, 1920, at the Hôpital de la Charité of tubercular meningitis, at the age of 35, in Paris. There was an enormous funeral, attended by many from the artistic communities in Montmartre and Montparnasse.

He had little success while alive, but after his death achieved great popularity. Since his death, Modigliani's reputation has soared. Nine novels, a play, a documentary, and three feature films have been devoted to his life.