Modigliani: A Life

Drunk, dissolute and dead at 35 – Amedeo Modigliani’s short, almost prototypically Bohemian, life could read as the aspirational template for Francis Bacon in the 1950s or later-day ‘60s rock stars. And a new biography might tend to pastiche, reinforcing the myth of a dissipated genius. Not so with Meryle Secrest’s excellent new biography of the Italian artist, who struggled against ill-health and indifference in Paris at the birth of modernism.

Remembered now for his portraits that elongate the face and neck (as viewed through the neck of a wine bottle in the words of one commentator) and set almond eyes, recalling early Siennese altar painting, in warm-colour fields of flesh, few know that he sculpted and was a prolific drawer. Described by critic Peter Schjeldahl as the “perennial favorite of sensitive adolescents”, his works now attract staggering prices, adding to a later-day lustre. But to many critics and scholars he remains a minor figure in the history of the School of Paris, eclipsed by Pablo Picasso (who envied his dress sense), Constantin Brancusi (who mentored his sculptural development), Georges Braque and the impoverished, ragged Chaim Soutine (a close associate).

Originally released by Alfred Knopf Publishers earlier this year and available locally from Scribe Publications, this new work runs some 416 pages and is well illustrated with characterful, original historical photographs and eight colour-plate reproductions. Secrest, a polished veteran of the genre, has a line of bio-books behind her, many dealing with art world stars – painter Salvador Dali, architect Frank Lloyd Wright and art historian doyen Kenneth Clark included.

Don’t expect any surprises here: the promotional material for the book hints at new insights – a tenuous suggestion that Modigliani feigned his addictions to cover the symptoms of worsening tuberculosis – but this is not a book of revelations or new art-historical scholarship (for example Giovanni Segantini (1858-1899), who was immensely famous in Modigliani’s day, is described simply as a painter of Alpine meadows.). There is not very much description or analysis of Modigliani’s oeuvre and the colour plates have no particular context in the test.

What you get instead is a very well crafted, insightful text, offering an often fascinating synthesis of multiple prior sources that reawakens a lost time. That synthesis in itself is a very useful undertaking as Modigliani left no extensive journals and he appears mostly as literary fragments in the writings of others of the time. Secrest’s strength as a biographer is evocation of place and personality, allowing her to enliven what is in essence a linear narrative. There is conjecture and speculation but the book stays grounded in well researched facts. Perhaps the most original section of the work is the last, considering the now-formidable problem of the multiple fakes in the art market and the effect that has had on Modigliani’s legacy – although with recent auctions exceeding $50 million, prices seem secure.

Born into wealth in 1884 but also experiencing dramatic reversal of fortune, Modigliani was the indulged youngest son of four siblings in an Italian-Jewish mercantile family. Given to frail health and almost certainly infected with tuberculosis early in life, he was much indulged and set his ambition to painting. Charming and a stylish dresser with an aristocratic bearing, he arrived in Paris in 1906 and was soon a local identity in the art enclaves centred on Montmartre and later Montparnasse. But he struggled for recognition, achieving a first solo show only three years before his death and finding enthusiastic recognition – and then in England – in the months before his death.

Modigliani immediately spent everything that came to him and subsisted on his charm through the largesse of numerous benefactors: a well-healed physician with a taste for bohemian life, a maternally inclined inn keeper and an almost innumerable string of lovers. Secrest magnificently recreates the alcohol- and drug-soaked haze and squalor that was the life of that time before the proscription of narcotics. Her thesis (tentatively advanced) that Modigliani feigned addiction to cover advancing tuberculosis seems stretched, however. Lacking much of a moral compass, Modgliani more likely just concealed the condition. His final lover, left destitute in child, suicided days after his death in abject obscurity. But Modgliani received a grandiose funeral – a portent of his future fame.

You may not be convinced by some of the arguments to pardon his many addictions Meryle Secrest puts forward in her new book, and there is nothing new here on his art per se, but you will find this book to be an engaging and very worthwhile read.

3.5 out of 5 stars

Modigliani: A Life
By Meryle Secrest
Scribe/Knopf
416 pages
RRP $45, ebook $29.99