'Everything you’ve ever wanted to know about one of the most charismatic and talented artists of modern times’ Phillip Knightley author of Master Spy: The Story of Kim Philby
‘As the first biography to appear on Modigliani in English in decades … Meyers’s book is greatly-appreciated and anticipated … a very good read’ Kenneth Wayne author of Modigliani and the Artists of Montparnasse
The story of Modigliani, an artist with a reckless passion for art, women and alcohol, whose fame escaped him during his short life, and whose friends included the giants of the early 20th Century Parisian artworld.
In 1920, at the age of thirty-five, Amedeo Modigliani died in poverty and neglect in Paris. An Italian Jew from a bourgeois family, ‘Modi’ had a weakness for drink, hashish, and the many women who were drawn to his good looks and charismatic charm. His friends included Picasso, Utrillo and Soutine, among others, yet his work was never recognised in his own lifetime. Today's art world acknowledges him as a master whose oeuvre-sculptures, portraits, and nudes cannot satisfy collectors’ demand. With a lively but judicious hand, biographer Jeffrey Meyers sketches Modigliani and his art, illuminating not only this little-known figure but also the painters, writers and lovers who shared early twentieth-century Paris with him.
