How are you?
Modigliani Institute Korea (MIK) is
currently introducing artworks of Amedeo Modigliani one by one every week.
The 61st work to introduce for this
week is “Portrait of Max Jacob”
in 1916.
This work is an expressionist style
portrait and an oil painting on a canvas with the size of 92.7 x 60.3 cm, and possessed
by Cincinnati Art Museum in Cincinnati, Ohio, USA.
Cincinnati Art Museum
Max Jacob was a French poet,
painter, writer and critic who was born on July 12, 1876 and died on March 5,
1944.
Max Jacob
Jacob was born from a family of a
poor Jewish tailor in Quimper, Brittany. However, despite his poverty, he was
very interested in costumes, and his preferences for the costumes can be
guessed from his appearances in this work as well as another painting wearing a
hat that Modigliani painted him.
Max Jacob, Modigliani (1916)
He was one of the first friends
whom Pablo Picasso met in Paris. The two met in the summer of 1901, and Jacob
helped Picasso learn French. Jacob also became close friends with Modigliani,
and Modigliani painted his portrait in 1916.
Amedeo Modigliani, Max Jacob, Andre Salmon and Ortiz de Zarate taken by Jean Cocteau in Montparnasse, Paris (1916)
In May 1936, Jacob, who moved
outside of Paris and settled in Saint-Benoît-sur-Loire, Loiret, was arrested by
the Gestapo on February 24, 1944 and imprisoned at Orléans prison. Jacob, who was imprisoned at
Orléans prison, was then transferred to Drancy internment camp and then
supposed to be transferred to Auschwitz. However, Max Jacob, who was
suffering from bronchial pneumonia, died on March 5 in the infirmary of La Cité
de la Muette, a former housing block which served as the internment camp known
as Drancy.
Max Jacob, shown in this painting,
is characterized by his complex appearance, such as a few white hair, eyes with
no pupils through which the wall can be seen, curved eyebrows, a hooked nose,
almost invisible lips, angled chin and cheekbones.
It seems that Modigliani has
well captured and expressed his diverse and complex characters in this
painting, such as gentleness, kindness, cruelty and lust that his friends
described him.
In general, Modigliani drew eyes without pupils when it was difficult
to express the personality or character of his model, so it seems that Jacob's
eyes without pupils was due to the difficulty for expressing his diverse and
complex personality.
Thank you.
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