The Works by Amedeo Modigliani: 92. Roger Dutilleul (1919)

 

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Modigliani Institute Korea (MIK) is currently introducing artworks of Amedeo Modigliani.

The 92nd work to introduce for this week is “Roger Dutilleul” in 1919.

This work is an expressionist style portrait and an oil painting on canvas with the size of 100 x 65 cm and possessed in private collection.

Roger Dutilleul, born in Paris on December 19, 1872, and died in Paris on January 22, 1956, was an art collector and a patron of artists.

Roger Dutilleul

He began his collection in 1905 with major art dealers, such as Ambroise Vollard or Léonce Rosenberg. In 1907, he met Daniel-Henry Kahnweiler, an art collector who had just opened his own gallery at the time, and became one of his first clients.

Ambroise Vollard

Daniel-Henry Kahnweiler

Dutilleul once remarked, "There is no such thing as abstract or figurative, there is just good painting." It was a fine motto for him, who collected about fifteen Modigliani works and dozens of works by various artists such as Braque, Derain, Vlaminck, Picasso, Matisse, Leger, and Miro. He was a great bourgeois, a refined man and, like Paul Guillaume, a true lover of avant-garde art. 

Georges Braque

Discovering some of Modigliani's works in Paul Guillaume's gallery, he received an offer for his other works from Constant Lepoutre, an art dealer who introduced him to Zborowski, and then purchased all the works of Modigliani that Zborowski possessed. Then, Zborowski suggested Dutilleul for the model of Modigliani. 

Portrait of Paul Guillaume, Amedeo
Modigliani (1915)

Portrait of Constant Lepoutre, Amedeo
Modigliani (1916)

Portrait of Leopold Zborowski, Amedeo
Modigliani (1919)

Modigliani's portrait of Dutilleul shows an aristocratic elegance comparable to that of his first patron, Paul Alexandre, painted in 1909. The portrait of Dutilleul, painted ten years after Modigliani painted Alexandre's portrait, is characterized by the muted color, the very thin painting and the slightly tilted head compared to Alexandre's portrait. 

Portrait of Paul Alexandre, Amedeo
Modigliani (1909)

Also, as a token of his gratitude to his other patron, Dutilleul, Modigliani portrays him in his work as a benevolent and dignified figure. This portrait was painted in three sessions totaling seven and a half hours.

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The Introduction of the Works by Amedeo Modigliani: 17. The Amazon (1909)

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Modigliani Institute Korea (MIK) is currently introducing artworks of Amedeo Modigliani one by one every week.

The 17th work to introduce for this week is “The Amazon (1909)”.

This work is, a portrait of an expressionist style and an oil painting on canvas with the size of 92 x 65 cm, painted by Modigliani in 1909.

In the late 1907, Modigliani met Dr. Paul Alexandre, by the introduction of a painter and his friend ‘Henri Doucet’, who later became a friend and a patron of Modigliani.
The friendship of the two, then, continued until the World War I broke out and Alexandre joined the army as a surgeon.
While meeting Alexandre, Modigliani was a young, unknown artist, but Alexandre soon recognized his talent.
As a friend of Modigliani, Alexandre commissioned him for his work for the first time to help Modigliani.
He also actively arranged commissions for his works to the acquaintances around him, and one of them is "The Amazon”, which is introduced today.
This work is also called “The Portrait of a Woman in a Horse Riding Suit.”
It was not commissioned by Alexandre, but commissioned by Baroness Marguerite de Hasse de Villers on his recommendation, and the model of the work was also Marguerite herself.
She was a beautiful socialite and a lover of Jean, who was Alexander's younger brother at the time.
In this work, she is posing in a riding suit.
Posing in a white shirt, black tie, black pants, black hat, black gloves and a yellow jacket, she looks at the viewer in slightly arrogant manner with her black gloved hands on her waist.
She is also showing a powerful and confident appearance of a socialite at the time.
Her attire is a man's suit rather than a woman's suit, but her appearance in this work rather gives a 'Femme Fatal' feeling with overflowing confidence and pride.
One of the elements that Modigliani struggled with a number of models when he was drawing was his stubborn character.
In other words, no matter how he drew by commission, Modigliani stopped drawing or didn’t speed up the work if he did not like the model who commissioned.
His such personality led to a conflict with Marguerite, who commissioned this work, and finally this work became a nightmare to Modigliani.
She continued to push Modigliani to quickly complete this work.
At some point, she lost her patience and threatened Modigliani with the final notice to cancel the commission if he doesn’t complete this work within a week.
However, until then, Modigliani had repeated many sketches for this work, and as a result, the process of this work went very slowly.
Considering the reasons for such repetitive works, Modigliani was commissioned by the help of his friend, Alexandre, but he might dislike Marguerite very much when he met her or he might ponder to figure out how to express her, who had a genius talent of capturing the mind or characteristics of the model very well in his works. 
Perhaps Modigliani might not have confidence about how to draw her.
Therefore, the rapid progress in drawing Marguerite might be a challenge and impossible to Modigliani from the start.
When Modigliani showed this work to Marguerite, she was so angry with claiming that the model in this work was not her, and then she refused to purchase it.
Despite this attitude of Marguerite, Alexandre saw the great potential of Modigliani's avant-garde approach in this work and purchased it.
When he was painting this work, the elongated expression, which is one of the representative painting styles of Modigliani, was not fully established but he was steadily going in that direction. 
There are also very sculptural elements on the face of the model, such as the model's elongated chin, sharp cheekbone narrowing towards the chin, pointed ears, small tight lips compared to the face, slightly narrowing eyes and thin bow-shaped eyebrows.
In 1909, when this work was painted, Modigliani began to recognize himself as a sculptor rather than a painter, and began to concentrate on sculpture in earnest when he met a sculptor Constantin Brâncuși.
Perhaps Modigliani's enthusiasm and commitment to the sculptures was attempted on the face of the model when he painted this work.
In other words, it is a work that shows both the traces of elongated drawing style and sculptures he has indulged.
Also, in this work, Modigliani drew Marguerite's face sharply but contrasted by drawing the lines of her body and clothes smoothly to alleviate this sharpness throughout the work. 
It is his genius talent showing the compactness of the composition perfectly balancing the overall composition of the painting.
The most prominent color in this work is the yellow color of the jacket, which is more noticeable due to the dark green color of the background.
In addition, the signed position by Modigliani after he completed his work was not fixed. In this work, the left side of the model is slightly wider than the right side of the model. 
Modigliani signed at the bottom of the left side for the stability in this work, and it resulted in perfect organization and harmonization with the size and position of the model.

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The Introduction of the Works by Amedeo Modigliani: 14. The Portrait of Paul Alexandre (1909)

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Modigliani Institute Korea (MIK) is currently introducing artworks of Amedeo Modigliani one by one every week.

The 14th work to introduce for this week is “The Portrait of Paul Alexandre (1909)”.

This work is, a portrait of an expressionist style and an oil painting on canvas with the size of 100 x 81 cm, painted by Modigliani in 1909.

In the late 1907, a year after Modigliani moved to Paris, he was run out of money and was kicked out of his studio at Place de Jean-Baptiste Clement.

A painter and his friend, ‘Henri Doucet’, met with Modigliani at Lapin Agile and suggested to meet Dr. Paul Alexandre at Rue du Delta.

Paul Alexandre, a young dermatologist at the time, had rented a small house for his artist friends to rebuild after demolition at Rue du Delta.

Alexandre, who met Modigliani for the first time, was deeply impressed by his charm, talent and cultivation, and then continued to support Modigliani as his patron.

He also insisted on using only Modigliani's works to decorate the walls of the Delta house. 

Since Alexandre was a professional dermatologist at early career at the time, he had not enough money, but he became the only buyer of Modigliani for a long time.

It is remarkable that, as a dermatologist at early career, who was also struggling to secure clients for money, he supported Modigliani, who was then a completely unknown artist.

Modigliani had a characteristic of destroying his work, which was not satisfactory, after completing it.

However, Alexandre, as a friend of Modigliani, persuaded him not to destroy the work, and after Modigliani arrived in Paris, he commissioned Modigliani for the first time to help him.

These commissioned works include portraits of his family members such as ‘Jean Alexandre’ and portraits of friends such as ‘The portrait of a woman wearing horse riding suit’, which is also famous for the title "Amazon."

What is a noteworthy point in the work I introduce today is the background of the work.

It is “The Jewish Woman”, which is the first work Modigliani sold after he moved to Paris and purchased by Paul Alexandre.

Alexandre also requested Modigliani to paint “The Jewish Woman” as the backgrounds of three additional portraits he commissioned.

What stands out in Alexandre's appearance in this work is the long face, wide forehead, mustache, and white collar and sleeve.

Alexandre's face in this work is somewhat longer and exaggerated than his real face, and his appearance with his left hand in his suit’s pocket reminds of an elegant and noble aristocrat.

It is reminiscent of the paintings of the nobles of the Mannerism, a period of the 'late Renaissance', which were represented by artists such Bronzino during the 16th century.

It also shows the influence of ‘African art’ from the long face and appearance of Alexandre.

However the friendship of the two completely ended after the outbreak of the World War I, when Alexandre joined the army and served as a military doctor, after which the two never met again.

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The Introduction of the Works by Amedeo Modigliani: 12. Portrait of Jean Alexandre (1909)

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Modigliani Institute Korea (MIK) is currently introducing artworks of Amedeo Modigliani one by one every week.

The 12th work to introduce this week is “Portrait of Jean Alexandre (1909)”.

This work is, a portrait of an expressionist style and an oil painting on canvas with the size of 65 x 81 cm, painted by Modigliani in 1909.

Jean, the model of the work, was a young student at the time and he commissioned Modigliani for this work.

It is also the work which Modigliani painted after he painted the portraits of Jean’s father and Paul Alexandre, who was his brother as well as the friend and patron of Modigliani.

Modigliani painted this work in his studio at 14, Cite Falguiere at the time.

In this work, Jean is wearing a maroon tie, a white shirt and a black suit, leaning his head on his right hand.

The reason why Modigliani used black color for the suit of Jean is that the black color was the symbol of expensive suits for the wealthy people at the time.

Modigliani also used brown color as the background of the painting to further enhance the richness of Jean.

Modigliani, who was exactly understanding the influence of colors on painting, used a combination of warm and dark colors to highlight the professionalism of Jean, and wanted the viewers to recognize that Jean is from a wealthy family and well educated.

In addition, Modigliani did not place any objects besides the model in this work in order not to fade the meaning of this work.

Jean's face in this work is also an example that Modigliani was influenced by African sculptures.

The right arm of the model rests on a pillar on the wall, but Modigliani did not clearly represent the pillar in the painting.

It seems to be an effort to preserve the meaning of the work with simple backgrounds, and instead Modigliani treated Jean’s body as curves to represent that he is leaning against the pillar.

The model’s placement and the background’s expression of Modigliani is a part showing his excellent artistic techniques.

Jean was not an artists’ patron, but in the spring of 1909, when his brother, Paul Alexandre, left Paris, he replaced Paul's role and encouraged Modigliani and helped his daily life.

A few years later, in June 1913, Jean died of tuberculosis.
However, Modigliani stayed in Italy and did not know this at the time.

He returned to Paris a few days after the funeral of Jean and could not attend his funeral.

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The Introduction of the Works by Amedeo Modigliani: 10. The Jewish Woman

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Modigliani Institute Korea (MIK) is currently introducing artworks of Amedeo Modigliani one by one every week.

The 10th work to introduce this week is “The Jewish Woman (1908)”.

It was the first work which Modigliani sold after moving to Paris in 1906, and the person who purchased this work was his friend and patron, Paul Alexandre.

Alexandre then commissioned Modigliani for three additional paintings and requested Modigliani to draw this work as the background of them.

One of the features of this work is the boldness and originality of the colors used.

Although the woman in this work has a calm and inexpressive face, the strong contrast of the woman's distinct white face and dark clothes gives composition and inner tension, suggesting the strong emotion underlying her face.

Also, by expressing the background of the model in various colors, the model became more central point to this work.

The gloomy feeling of this work can be compared with the works of Picasso's Blue Period.

This work is also one of the few works that Modigliani, who has Jewish descent, officially recognized his Jewish identity and painted Jews as subject.

In view of the use of the word "Jewish" which Modigliani used in the title of this work, it seems that Modigliani was somewhat hesitant to publicly recognize his Jewish identity before drawing this work.

However, when drawing this painting, it seems that Modigliani had confidence in his identity as a Jew and he included the word “Jewish” in the title of this work to confirm his conviction.

It also suggests that racial discrimination, as well as gender, was existed in European society at the time.

Another feature of this work is the mixed brushstrokes used by Modigliani.

In other words, precise brushstrokes were used to detail the jaw of the model, while the wide and bold brushstrokes were used for the background and the clothes, so we can understand that Modigliani focused on the model in this work.

Modigliani's mixed brushstroke technique used in this work makes this work more original and outstanding.

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The Introduction of the Works by Amedeo Modigliani: 7. Woman's Head with Beauty Spot

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Modigliani Institute Korea (MIK) is currently introducing artworks of Amedeo Modigliani one by one every week.

The 7th work to introduce this week is “Woman's Head with Beauty Spot (1906)”.

It is an oil painting on canvas having a size of 33 x 24 cm.

It is estimated that Modigliani considered this painting a particularly important work because he took it to the house of Paul Alexandre in Delta Street, who was the first patron of Modigliani and the first owner of the painting.

Modigliani painted this work in the year when he moved to Paris.

This work shows the traces of classical art he studied at the Schools of Art in Florence and Venice before moving to Paris.

This painting is a very individual work in the respect that Modigliani did not care much except for the model’s face for painting, and thus the model's hair and clothes are not clearly distinguished from the background.

The painting is also characterized by the model being drawn at a much closer distance than other works of Modigliani.

Although the model’s unique feature is a beauty spot, it seemed that Modigliani tried to emphasize the character of the model through the model's frontal pose and the gaze.

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