Amedeo Modigliani

Dr Paul Alexandre, Paris (acquired from the artist)
By descent to the present owner

Venice, Palazzo Grassi ; London, The Royal Academy of Arts (travelling exhibition also passing through Cologne, Madrid, Bruges, Tokyo, Luxembourg, New York, Montreal & Rouen), Modigliani inconnu : Dessins de la Collection Paul Alexandre, 1993-96, no. 168

Noël Alexandre, Modigliani inconnu, Témoignages, documents et dessins inédits de l'ancienne collection de Paul Alexandre, Paris, 1993, no. 168, illustrated pl. 258, p. 297
Osvaldo Patani, Amedeo Modigliani, Catalogue Generale, Disegni 1906-1920 con i disegni provenienti dalla collezione Paul Alexandre (1906-1914), Milan, 1994, no. 957, illustrated p. 397

Executed on cream wove paper, not laid down, floating in the mount, fixed at two points along the upper edge. The left edge is deckled. There is an artists pinhole in the centre of the lower edge and two V-shaped minor repaired tears in the upper corners. Apart from a pinhole loss towards the top of the right edge, this work remains overall in very good condition.
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"Undoubtedly, Modigliani's most powerful drawings are the drawings of a sculptor" (François Bergot, 'L'Ange au visage grave', in Noël Alexandre, Modigliani inconnu, Paris, 1993, p. 8). 

It is unquestionably in his drawings of caryatids that Modigliani's predilection for sculpture is most powerfully expressed. This ancient theme of idealised female figures, conceived as architectural columns, became an obsession for the artist during his early years in Paris. His ambition was to create a monumental series of stone caryatids but his deteriorating health limited the scope of his production in this medium, and he instead devoted himself to a two-dimensional exploration of the theme, executing over 60 drawings and studies. Modigliani's caryatids, with their highly stylised, geometric forms, take inspiration from the tribal artefacts he had discovered in the company of his patron and friend Paul Alexandre at the Musée du Trocadero in 1910, and also recall the sculptures of Constantin Brancusi, who similarly sought to reduce the human form to minimal sculptural elements.

This frontal female portrait is one of the final sketches in this series, completed before the artist's departure for Livorno in April 1913, and shows the concluding stage of his process of conceptualising the metamorphosis from head to capital. Modigliani was awestruck by his encounter with Khmer limestone archaeological heads and strove to mimic their simplicity in his sketches, evoking their grandeur and permanence as well as their austerity. His deliberate mirroring of drawn elements demonstrates a captivation with geometric order and symmetry yet, in the stray marks in the background, he also reveals the inherently “imperfect” process of free artistic experimentation at play. This duality between the perfect ideal of symmetry and his freedom of expression as a draughtsman is noted by Noël Alexandre: "Modigliani pursued his search for ideal beauty in the simplest of forms with tenacity and intelligence... The more rigorous the symmetry, the greater his freedom in expressing the essential truth. Clearly this lies behind the vertical formats and the stress on frontality that are found in the drawings." (quoted in: The Unknown Modigliani, 1993, p. 241)