Modigliani

Description

In 1920, at the age of thirty-five, Amedeo Modigliani died in poverty and neglect in Paris. An Italian Jew from a bourgeois family, he 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 artworld acknowledges him as a master whose oeuvre-sculptures, portraits, and nudes cannot satisfy collectors' demands. 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.

Reviews

'A compelling and sensitive rendering of Modgliani's life' - "The Art Newspaper".'A good saunter through absinthe-toting fin-de-siA"cle Paris' - "Daily Telegraph"'Illuminating'- "Sunday Telegraph".'Jeffrey Meyers's fascinating biography goes beyond the myth of the starving artist' - "Jewish Chronicle". 'Fascinating... Meyers unravels the complex history of a tortured artist who lived and died in impoverished obscurity yet received worldwide posthumous acclaim' "Daily Mail".

Author description

Jeffrey Meyers is has written prolifically on literature, film, and art. He is the author of highly acclaimed biographies of Joseph Conrad, Somerset Maugham, Ernest Hemingway, George Orwell and Edgar Allan Poe. He lives in Berkeley, California.