Modigliani's portraits come to Korea

Amedeo Modigliani, “Jeanne Hebuterne, Seated” / Courtesy of Modigliani Exhibition Team and Israel Museum

By Kwon Mee-yoo

Subjects whose portraits were painted by Amedeo Modigliani (1884-1920) are characterized by their long necks and almond-shaped eyes. However, the eyes are also blank holes without pupils, a result of Modigliani’s exploration of human nature. "When I know your soul, I will paint your eyes," the artist once said.

Titled "Amedeo Modigliani: Legend of Montparnasse," the exhibition at Hangaram Art Museum in Seoul Arts Center features some 70 works of the early-20th century Italian-Jewish painter, which is a significant portion of the artist's oeuvre of just fewer than 400 oil paintings.

Seo Soun-jou, commissioner of the exhibit, said the work comes from about 45 lenders, including some 20 private collections.

Modigliani, born in Italy, moved to Paris, then center of the avant-garde art, in 1906, and pursued his career there. Seo referred to Modigliani as a Bohemian painter and the legend of Montparnasse among the artists of the Ecole de Paris. Montparnasse is a neighborhood in Paris, which was home to many 20th-century artistic talents.

"Modigliani painted portraits throughout his life with only few exceptions, including a handful of landscapes of Nice when he was on convalescence. He pursued the inner workings of humankind by working on numerous portraits," Seo said. "Modigliani was delicately built and suffered typhoid fever and tuberculosis when young. Such suffering from sickness enlightened the artist to the finitude of life."

Amedeo Modigliani, “Portrait of Paul Guillaume” / Courtesy of Modigliani Exhibition Team and Toledo Museum of Art

The exhibition is divided into six sections -- Portraits of Men, Caryatids, Portraits of Women, Nudes, Works on Paper, Modigliani and Moise Kisling.

At first, Modigliani practiced sculpture, but gave up due to the physical burden and shifted his interest to painting. His early portraits were influenced by Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, Paul Cezanne and Pablo Picasso.

As the artist could not afford to hire models until his later days, he mainly painted his acquaintances and friends, including Chaim Soutine, Pablo Picasso, Max Jacob and Jean Cocteau. Though Modigliani is now known for his female portraits, he mainly painted men until 1914.

Caryatids are female-shaped columns in ancient architecture and Modigliani trained drawing various poses through them.

As time went by, Modigliani's elongated figures grew simpler in color and shape. Some of the subjects of his earlier portraits had pupils in their eyes, but those in his later works have blank eyes.

"What I look for is neither reality nor unreality, but the subconscious, instinctive mystery of the human race," Modigliani had said.

The three most important loves of Modigliani were his first love in Paris Maude Abrantes, British poet and critic Beatrice Hastings and his wife, Jeanne Hebuterne. All these women became the artist’s muse, leaving portraits.

The most famous among them is Hebuterne, who was a 19-year-old art student when she first met Modigliani. She was with him in the painter’s last days. He died of tubercular meningitis at young age of 35, and eight-month pregnant Hebuterne threw herself off her parents’ apartment building, a day after Modigliani’s death, putting an end to their tragic but artistic relationship.

The short-lived artist was mostly unnoticed during his days, but his work came into the spotlight posthumously. He only had one solo exhibition in his life, which was closed down on the opening day for containing obscene material.

Seo said the artist fathomed what is beyond the essence of humankind. “It was his patience, his obsessive insistence painting portraits through which he sought to sympathize and communicate with a common humanity, that we sense the artist’s spirit that regrettably was not given a chance to fully blossom.”

The exhibit runs from June 26 to Oct. 4. Admission is 15,000 won for adults. For more information, visit www.modigliani.co.kr or call 1588-2618.