Amedeo Modigliani

Dr. Paul Alexandre, Paris (acquired directly from the artist before 1914)
Thence by descent to the present owner

Venice, Palazzo Grassi; Rouen, Musée des Beaux-Arts; Montreal, Musée des Beaux-Arts de Montréal (& travelling), Modigliani inconnu: Dessins de la Collection Paul Alexandre, 1993, no. 153, illustrated in the catalogue

Noël Alexandre, The Unknown Modigliani, Drawings from the Collection of Paul Alexandre, New York, 1993, no. 66, fig. 153, illustrated in colour p. 227
Osvaldo Patani, Amedeo Modigliani, Catalogo Generale, Disegni 1906-1920, Milan, 1994, no. 862, illustrated p. 372

Executed on cream wove paper, not laid down, hinged to the mount at the upper two corners, and floating in the overmount. The right edge is serrated, and the paper has been torn towards the lower right corner. There is some light surface dirt at the upper left and lower right corner, with some light creases to the lower left corners. There is a small pinhole to the upper left corner. Otherwise, this work is in overall good condition. Colours: overall fairly accurate in the printed catalogue though the paper tone slightly warmer and the blacks are more pronounced in the original.
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With its unbroken, flowing lines, Femme nue, vue de face bears testimony to Modigliani’s extraordinary talent for invention and purification of form. The subject of this drawing, a caryatid – an idealized woman in the form of a column or pillar destined to support the structure of a building – is by definition three-dimensional, and one in which Modigliani’s predilection for sculpture is most evident. The symmetry and balance which is so striking in the articulation of the present figure’s curvaceous body and outstretched hands exemplifies the geometric and sculptural austerity of line that so fascinated and enraptured the artist. Modigliani makes next to no use of shading to create depth; it is rendered quite simply and with complete success by the precision of his line. According to Noël Alexandre, 'when a figure haunted his mind, he would draw feverishly with unbelievable speed, never retouching, starting the same drawing ten times in an evening by the light of a candle, until he obtained the contour he wanted in a sketch that satisfied him. This is what gives his most beautiful drawings their purity and extraordinary freshness' (Noël Alexandre, op. cit., p. 65).

 

It is for the very same reason that the stylization of African art appealed to him. Mesmerized by the Khmer, oceanic and African art that he encountered with Paul Alexandre at the Musée du Trocadéro in 1910, Modigliani set about reconstructing the lines of the human face using distinctly primitive patterns and including subtle visual allusions to these richly inspiring new discoveries in his drawings of caryatids, such as Femme nue, vue de face. As Noël Alexandre points out, 'the subtle use of stylization and simplification derived from African masks, tattoos, earrings and necklaces intensifies the majestic elegance of these beautiful creatures, who epitomize the highly personal devotion that Modigliani showed to women' (Noël Alexandre, op. cit., p. 189).