How are you?
Modigliani Institute Korea (MIK) is
currently introducing artworks of Amedeo Modigliani.
The 96th work to introduce for this
week is “Jeanne Hébuterne with a Necklace” in 1917.
This work is an expressionist style
portrait and an oil painting on canvas with the size of 55.8 x 38.7 cm and possessed
by Private Collection.
This portrait is one of the very first paintings that Modigliani painted Jeanne Hébuterne. Jeanne was a French painter and artist model, born on April 6, 1898 and died on January 25, 1920, best known as Modigliani's principal model and common-law wife.
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| Jeanne Hébuterne |
She was born in
Meaux, a city in the Seine-et-Marne department in the Île-de-France region, the
second child of Achille Casimir Hébuterne and Eudoxie Anaïs Tellier Hébuterne.
She was introduced to the artistic community in Montparnasse by her brother and
the painter André Hébuterne, where she met several artists who were starving at
the time and became a model for Tsuguharu Foujita.
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| Tsuguharu Foujita in his studio |
Talented for drawing, she studied
at the Académie Colarossi to pursue a career in the art, where in the spring of
1917 she was introduced to Modigliani by the sculptress Chana Orloff, who,
along with many other artists, came to utilize the Academy’s living models, and
she soon fell in love with Modigliani. Her parents strongly opposed her meeting
with Modigliani, but she soon left her home and began living with Modigliani.
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| Chana Orloff |
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| Academie Colarossi life drawing class (1908) |
Gentle, shy, quiet and delicate, Jeanne became a principal subject of Modigliani's paintings. In the spring of 1918, the couple moved to the warmer climate of Nice, and on November 29 of that year, their daughter, Jeanne Modigliani, was born.
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| Portrait of Jeanne Hébuterne, Amedeo Modigliani (1918) |
The following spring, they returned
to Paris and Jeanne became pregnant again. At the time, Modigliani was
suffering from tuberculous meningitis and his health deteriorated further with
complications from substance abuse.
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| Self portrait, Jeanne Hébuterne (1916) |
After Modigliani's death on January 24, 1920, her family took her to their home, but she threw herself out of the window on the fifth floor of the apartment the day after Modigliani's death, killing herself and her unborn child. Her family, who blamed her death on Modigliani, buried her in the Cimetière de Bagneux.
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| Entrance of the Cimetière parisien de Bagneux |
Nearly ten years later, at the request of Modigliani's elder brother Emanuele, her remains were transferred beside Modigliani in the Père Lachaise Cemetery. Her epitaph reads: "Devoted companion to the extreme sacrifice."
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| Grave of Modigliani and Hébuterne in Père Lachaise Cemetery |
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| Père Lachaise Cemetery |
Their orphaned daughter, Jeanne
Modigliani, was adopted by Modigliani's elder sister in Florence, Italy.
Growing up knowing almost nothing about her parents, she began researching her
parents' lives as an adult. In 1958, she wrote a biography of her father,
entitled “Modigliani: Man and Myth.”
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| Jeanne Modigliani |
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| Modigliani: Man and Myth |
The friends of Jeanne Hébuterne
used to describe her as having two long tresses flowing down her back, but in
this painting, she poses with her hair up. The dress she wears with its
fastening was probably of her own design and making, and her necklace of coarse
grains adds a sense of stability to her appearance.
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| Jeanne Hébuterne |
This painting, painted somewhat
heavy with impasto technique, is very different from the following Modigliani’s
paintings of her, showing her sophisticated appearances and more liberal use of
paint. However, this painting touches us with an intense feeling, as if
foretelling their passionate love that would end tragically.
Thank you.
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