Word: modigliani
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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...Fogg shows 32 pencil drawings by the most delicate and, perhaps, most sensitive of the modern Italian artists, Amedeo Modigliani. This, too, is a fine exhibit, and the Museum is to be especially congratulated for the show's handsome appearance. In one corner, the Fogg devotedly displays the death mask of the artist, wreathed by laurel leaves, and, in another, placed potted ivies. This tasteful presentation complements the subdued, distinctiveness of the works exhibited. It is also a tribute to the knowing connoisseurship of Stefa and Leon Brillouin who have over the years built up this valuable collection...
...earliest effort of Modigliani, Reclining Female Nude, relates directly to his sculptural experimentation in primitive forms, but even here, lyricism, his greatest gift, predominates. From 1911 to 1915, Modigliani was profoundly influenced by Cubist distortion of the human form, and most of his drawings from this period are unsatisfying. In oil paint, the vigor of his rough and somewhat arbitrary compositions is easily expressed but soft and hard graphite pencil on a thin, flexible paper cannot imbue them with the necessary conviction. The scribbly, hectic quality of a piece like La Francaise indicates the extent to which the Cubist treatment...
...about 1917, Modigliani's drawing reaches a consistently high standard of draftsmanship. With a few swift and caressing strokes, as in Lola, Modigliani can evoke a lovely girl, sitting at her ease, looking alertly at the viewer. Drawn in the last year of the artist's short, wantonly bohemian life, A Young Man is especially enjoyable for its intricately balanced composition and its artful, linear suggestion of facial volumes...
...stunning Portrait of a Woman, also done in 1919, depicts with vitality a woman of fashion. The finely tooled detail and Ingresque perceptiveness of Seated Lady contrasts with the vivid elegance of the Portrait. Here, Modigliani's relish for feminine beauty combines perfectly with his love for the controlled line to create a modern "master drawing...
...Modigliani's Portrait of a Student displays the loosest sort of lyricism into which the Modigliani manner can degenerate. Picasso's two little cubist paintings have little more than the master's signature to recommend them. Their color has no vitality or subtlety and the jumped compositions, especially that of the cramped Bottle and Glass, exemplifies Picasso's carelessness at its most annoying. Carelessness, indeed, sloppiness blemishes a Miro pastel, titled, for no readily apparent reason, Woman Doing Her Hair Before a Mirror. A mysterious and evocative oil painting of his, Composition, done in 1925, has a flow and easiness...