Amedeo Modighani was born in Italy in 1884 and died in Paris at the age of thirty-five. He was Jewish, with a French mother and Italian father, and so grew up with three cultures. A passionate and charming man who had numerous lovers, his unique vision was nurtured by his appreciation of his Italian and classical artistic heritage, his understanding of French style and sensibility, in particular the rich artistic atmosphere of Paris at the turn of the 20th century, and his intellectual awareness inspired by Jewish tradition.
Unlike other avant-garde artists, Modigliani painted mainly portraits -o typically unrealistically elongated with a melancholic air - and nudes, which exhibit a graceful beauty and strange eroticism.
In 1906, Modighani moved to Pans, the centre of artistic innovation and the international art market. He frequented the cafes and galleries of Montmartre and Montparnasse, where many different groups of artists congregated. He soon became friends with the post-impressionist painter (and alcoholic) Maurice Utrillo (1883-1955) and the German painter Ludwig Meidner (1844-1966), who described Modighani as the "last, true bohemian" (Doris Krystof, Modigliani).
Modigliani's mother sent him what money she could afford, but he was desperately poor and had to change lodgings frequently, sometimes abandoning his work when he had to run away without paying the rent. Fernande Olivier, the first girlfriend in Paris of Pablo Picasso (1881-1973), describes one of Modigliani's rooms in her book Picasso and his Friends (1933): "A stand on four feet in one corner of the room. A small and rusty stove on top of which was a yellow terracotta bowl that was used for washing in; close by lay a towel and a piece of soap on a white wooden table. In another corner, a small and dingy box-chest painted black was used as an uncomfortable sofa. A straw-seated chair, easels, canvases of all sizes, tubes of colour spilt on the floor, brushes, containers for turpentine, a bowl for nitric acid (used for etchings), and no curtains."
Modighani was a well-known figure at the Bateau-Lavoir, the celebrated building where many artists, including Picasso, had their studios. It was probably given its name by the bohemian writer and friend of both Modigliani and Picasso, Max Jacob (1876-1944). While at the Bateau-Lavoir, Picasso painted Les Demoiselles d'Avignon (1907), the radical depiction of a group of prostitutes that heralded the start of Cubism.