How are you?
Modigliani Institute Korea (MIK) is
currently introducing artworks of Amedeo Modigliani one by one every week.
The 74th work to introduce for this
week is “Jacques and Berthe Lipchitz” in 1916.
This work is an expressionist style
portrait and an oil painting on a canvas with the size of 81.3 x 54.3 cm, and
possessed by the Art Institute of Chicago, USA.
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| Art Institute of Chicago |
This is a double portrait depicting Modigliani's friend, the sculptor Jacques Lipchitz and his wife Berthe Kitrosser, a Russian poet, and one of only two double portraits by Modigliani. This work depicts a nicely dressed Lipchitz standing, with one hand on the shoulder of his wife, Berthe, in their Paris apartment, formerly the home of the sculptor Constantin Brâncuși.
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| The Kiss, Constantin Brâncuși (1907-08) |
An example of works showing the genius Modigliani's talent, expressing the character and personality of the model through paintings, both models in the work have mask-like faces, but the difference in personality of each model is excellently and delicately displayed in the painting.
First of all, Berthe, who has eyes
tilting downward, has an open, kind and gentle face. On the other hand, Jacques,
who has small and compressed eyes featuring sloping inward, appears calculating
and suspicious, and his eyes also clearly reflect the influence of Cubism.
Modigliani and Lipchitz were
artists of Jewish descent, and in Paris they met in the same artistic circles
and became close friends. However, despite their commonalities, the two had
distinct differences. Lipchitz was an example of industrious artists, while
Modigliani was an example of bohemian artists.
In 1916, Lipchitz, who married
Berthe at the time and signed a contract with the art dealer Leonce Rosenberg
and had some money, asked Modigliani to paint a portrait of him and his wife.
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| Jacques Lipchitz |
In response to Lipchitz's request
for painting, Modigliani replied, "My price is ten francs a sitting and a
little alcohol."
Modigliani came to his home the
next day and made a lot of preliminary drawings with tremendous speed and
precision, after which the pose inspired by their wedding photo was decided.
The next day Modigliani came with an old canvas and his painting material box
and began painting. He sat in front of the canvas on a chair, drew quietly,
stopped painting occasionally, took a gulp of alcohol nearby, and continued
painting again. At the end of the day, he said, "Well, I guess it's
finished."
Then Lipchitz, who wanted to pay as
much as possible to his friend Modigliani, was uncomfortable to give Modigliani
merely 10 francs for this painting, and made excuses for him to continue
working on the portrait, which finally took almost two weeks to complete this
portrait.
Currently, among the many
preliminary drawings by Modigliani that were drawn for this work, there are
five surviving: two of Lipchitz, two of Berthe, and one of them together.
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| Study for "Berthe Lipchitz" for "Jacques and Berthe Lipchitz" |
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| Study for "Jacques Lipchitz" for "Jacques and Berthe Lipchitz" |
Along with this work, there is other double portrait that Modigliani painted, “Bride and Groom (1915)”.
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| Bride and Groom, Amedeo Modigliani (1915) |
Comparing the two works, Modigliani expressed the model like character puppets
in the "Bride and Groom", while in the portrait of Jacques Lipchitz
and his wife, he transformed character puppets-like model into human beings. In
other words, this difference in the two works means that Modigliani's view for
the model has evolved from a purely formal depiction to an individual
characterization.
Lipchitz was also the person who created his death mask, after Modigliani's death in 1920.
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| Death mask of Modigliani, Jacques Lipchitz (1920) |
The work was purchased by Frederick C. and Helen Birch Bartlett in Chicago in 1922 and then donated to the Art Institute of Chicago in 1926 as part of the Helen Birch Bartlett Memorial Collection.
Thank you.
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