Amedeo Modigliani: “Reclining Nude”, c.1919 (Museum of Modern Art, New York).
Modigliani at Tate Modern This autumn, Tate Modern stages the most comprehensive Modigliani exhibition ever held in the UK. 23 November 2017 – 2 April 2018.]]>
Source: Tate Modern
Although he died tragically young, Amedeo Modigliani (1884–1920) was a ground-breaking artist who pushed the boundaries of the art of his time. Including almost 100 works, the exhibition re-evaluates this familiar figure, looking afresh at the experimentation that shaped his career and made Modigliani one of the greatest artists of the twentieth century.
A section devoted to Modigliani’s nudes, perhaps the best-known and most provocative of the artist’s works, is a major highlight. In these striking canvases Modigliani invented shocking new compositions that modernised figurative painting. His explicit depictions also proved controversial and led to the police censoring his only solo lifetime exhibition, at Berthe Weill’s gallery in 1917, on the grounds of indecency. This group of 10 nudes is the largest group ever seen in the UK, with paintings including “Seated Nude”, 1917 (Royal Museum of Fine Arts, Antwerp) and “Reclining Nude”, c.1919 (Museum of Modern Art, New York).
”Modigliani” feature exceptional examples of the artist’s lesser-known work in sculpture, bringing together a substantial group of his Heads made before the First World War. Although the artist’s ill-health and poverty eventually dictated otherwise, he spent a short but intense period focusing on carving, influenced by contemporaries and friends including Constantin Brâncuși and Jacob Epstein. For his wellbeing, Modigliani left Paris in 1918 for an extended period in the South of France. Here he adopted a more Mediterranean colour palette and, instead of his usual metropolitan sitters, he began painting local peasants and children such as “Young Woman of the People”, 1918 (Los Angeles County Museum of Art) and “Boy with a Blue Jacket”, 1919 (Indianapolis Museum of Art).
Visitors are able to enjoy a new integrated virtual reality experience right in the heart of the exhibition. The virtual reality room brings visitors closer into the artist’s world, enriching their understanding of his life and art.
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Amedeo Modigliani’s ‘Nu couché (Reclining Nude)’ sells for $170,4 million (news, 2015)
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