Amedeo Modigliani

Dr Paul Alexandre, Paris (acquired from the artist)
Thence by descent

Venice, Palazzo Grassi; London, The Royal Academy of Arts (travelling exhibition also passing through Cologne, Madrid, Bruges, Tokyo, Luxembourg, New York, Montreal & Rouen), Modigliani inconnu : Dessins de la Collection Paul Alexandre, 1993-96, no. 169

Noël Alexandre, Modigliani inconnu, Témoignages, documents et dessins inédits de l'ancienne collection de Paul Alexandre, Paris, 1993, no. 169, illustrated pl. 259, p. 298
Osvaldo Patani, Amedeo Modigliani, Catalogo Generale, Disegni 1906-1920 con i disegni provenienti dalla collezione Paul Alexandre (1906-1914), Milan, 1994, no. 980, illustrated p. 398

Executed on thin wove paper, not laid down, floating in the mount, fixed in the upper corners. The left edge is deckled. There are artist's pinholes in the upper corners and in the centre of the lower edge with an associated 1cm repaired tear in the upper right corner. There is some smudging (inherent to the artistic process) and some minuscule very faint specks of possible foxing. Apart from some very light creasing notably near the lower edge, this work is in overall excellent condition.
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Modigliani’s caryatids, with their geometric, stylised forms, take their inspiration from the tribal art that the artist discovered in the company of his patron and friend Paul Alexandre.  Contrary to received opinion, Paul Alexandre recounted that “it was Modigliani who introduced me to African art and not the other way around. He took me to the Musée du Trocadéro where he was passionate about the Angkor exhibition in the west wing. As for me, I never possessed any Cambodian or African art and am not a connoisseur” (Modigliani inconnu, p. 67). A worthy heir to Paul Cézanne and his exploration of the internal structure of motifs, Modigliani, like Brancusi, favours simplification and the quest for symmetry rather than the angular geometry of Cubist art.

This Tête de cariatide, which marries deep blue with ebony black lines, is one of the final sketches in this series, completed before the artist's departure for Livorno in April 1913. Characteristic of  this final stage, Modigliani here concludes the metamorphosis of the figure’s head into an architectural capital. He had been awestruck by his encounter with Khmer limestone archaeological heads and strove to mimic their simplicity in his sketches, evoking their grandeur and permanence as well as their austerity. His deliberate mirroring of drawn elements demonstrates a captivation with geometric order and symmetry yet, in the stray marks in the background, he also reveals the inherently “imperfect” process of free artistic experimentation at play. This duality between the perfect ideal of symmetry and his freedom of expression as a draughtsman is noted by Noël Alexandre: "Modigliani pursued his search for ideal beauty in the simplest of forms with tenacity and intelligence... The more rigorous the symmetry, the greater his freedom in expressing the essential truth. Clearly this lies behind the vertical formats and the stress on frontality that are found in the drawings." (quoted in: The Unknown Modigliani, 1993, p. 241)