Description

The career of the Italian-born painter and sculptor
Amedeo Modigliani was brief, but prolific.
This catalogue accompanies the retrospective
exhibition organized by LaM - Lille Métropole Musée
d'Art Moderne, d'Art Contemporain et d'Art Brut, which
boasts one of France's finest public collections of work
by the famous artist of Montparnasse: no fewer than six
paintings, seven drawings, and a rare marble sculpture,
all acquired by Roger Dutilleul and Jean Masurel, founders
of the museum's collection of modern art.

Echoing the exhibition's layout, the catalogue Amedeo
Modigliani: The Inner Eye revisits Modigliani's output,
focusing on three aspects of his life and work. The
authors turn the spotlight on the years during which he
was interested mainly in sculpture, examining his artistic
dialogue with ancient and non-Western art and quest
for a "synthesizing," spiritual art. As World War I broke
out, Modigliani was developing his style as a portraitist,
using as models the artists making up the free-spirited
community on the fringes of society to which he
himself belonged. This volume also explores the special
relationship between Modigliani's work and the
collector Roger Dutilleul; the two met in 1917, less than
three years before the artist's premature death.

The catalogue includes approximately one hundred
reproductions of paintings, drawings, and sculptures
by Modigliani, alongside works by Constantin Brancusi,
Pablo Picasso, Jacques Lipchitz, Chaïm Soutine, Moïse
Kisling, and Henri Laurens, among others.