"What I'm looking for isn't real or unreal, but rather something unconscious, a secret of the human instinct."

During his lifetime, he would exchange his drawings for a plate of food and a glass of wine; today, his paintings are worth millions. In 2018, a painting titled *Reclining Nude (on the left side)* sold at auction for $157.2 million, and three years earlier, a collector paid $170.4 million for another of his *Reclining Nudes*. In total, Modigliani left behind approximately 350 paintings and 25 sculptures, in addition to a large number of drawings. Their high prices have led to the creation of many forgeries.

The Italian painter and sculptor, , was born on July 12, 1884, in Livorno, Tuscany, as the youngest of four children of Flaminio and Eugenia Modigliani. Both parents came from wealthy Sephardic Jewish families. Modigliani's paternal ancestors lived in Rome in the early 19th century and provided financial services to the Vatican. His father was a mining engineer who, along with his brothers Albert and Isaac, managed a large estate and mine in Sardinia and operated a branch in Livorno. However, at the time of Amedeo's birth, the family was facing serious financial difficulties, and the decline in metal prices led to the company's bankruptcy.

Amedeo's birth was a significant event in the family's history. While his mother was giving birth, a court official arrived to seize the family's property, but an ancient law stipulated that the bed of a woman in labor could not be touched. Therefore, the family filled her bed with their most valuable possessions, thus saving it.

Amedeo's mother, Eugenia, née Garsin, was 15 years younger than Flaminio, and the family married her off to him at the age of 17 for financial reasons. She was born in Marseille, and her ancestors included several scholars who mastered sacred Jewish texts and founded a school of Talmudic studies. It is said that the philosopher Baruch Spinoza was also a member of her family line.

The marriage was not particularly happy. After the company's collapse, the father abandoned the family and moved to Sardinia to rebuild the business. The mother remained in Livorno and lived with her children, two sisters, and her widowed father, Isaac Garsin, a well-known intellectual who introduced his grandson to philosophical literature. To provide for the family, she gave French lessons, translated books, and, together with her sister Laura, founded a successful private school.

Amedeo learned to read and write at a young age. His mother, with whom he had a very close relationship, taught him at home until he was ten years old, as he was often ill as a child. He was several times on the verge of death; at the age of eleven, he recovered from pneumonia, then typhoid fever, and finally, at the age of sixteen, he contracted tuberculosis. As early as the age of thirteen, while on vacation with his father, he painted several portraits.

After recovering from a second bout of pleurisy, his mother took him on a trip through Italy, visiting Florence, Rome, Naples, and Capri. In Florence, Amedeo became fascinated by the old masters, and his mother allowed him to leave the lyceum. In 1898, she enrolled him in the Academy of Fine Arts, where he studied painting in the workshop of Guglielmo Micheli, then the most famous painter in Livorno. This action further strained his relationship with his father and the Modigliani family, who disapproved of Amedeo's painting and the support he gave to his older brother, Giuseppe, nicknamed "Mené," who studied law in Pisa, became a socialist activist, and was imprisoned in 1909. Amedeo Garsin, Amedeo's uncle, financed both brothers' studies.

After two years, Amedeo had to interrupt his studies with Micheli because he became ill with tuberculosis again. After developing a 19th-century painting style and the style of Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, he traveled south for a year to improve his health and artistic style. He began painting his first nudes, which would later make him famous. Even then, he preferred to paint in cafes and restaurants, which was not ideal for his health.

From 1902, he studied painting in Florence at the Academy of Fine Arts, but again had to interrupt his studies for health reasons. In 1903, he moved to Venice for three years, where he enrolled in another school, the Institute of Fine Arts. He began to smoke hashish and frequent cheap bars and brothels. In Venice, he met the Chilean painter Manuel Ortiz de Zárate, who remained one of his best friends until the end of his life. Ortiz de Zárate convinced him that modern art could only be found in Paris.

In 1906, Modigliani, who had spoken French since childhood, moved to Paris. He brought with him from the Italian museums a respect for tradition, but he developed his own distinctive painting style, influenced by primitive art. He also created some of his most important works in Paris, where he spent the rest of his short life.

He lived in Montmartre, where he rented a studio that was frequented by Picasso, Jacob, Salmon, and many other artists. However, he remained apart from this group, and his work remained independent; he sought his own path. He attracted attention with his attractive appearance and demeanor. He often wore a worn tweed suit with a red scarf around his neck and high-laced boots. He had extensive literary and philosophical knowledge, acquired in the cultured environment of his family, and he enjoyed reciting passages from Dante's Divine Comedy from memory.

Initially, he lived off the money his mother sent him and the inheritance from his uncle Amedeo, but he soon spent it all. There was little interest in his art; the paintings he exhibited in 1907 at the avant-garde Autumn Salon received little attention. At that time, he joined a community of artists founded by the doctor and art lover Paul Alexandre and his brother, the pharmacist Jean, who introduced him to the sculptor Constantin Brancusi. Amedeo became fascinated by sculpture.

In April 1909, he moved to Montparnasse, near Brancusi's studio, and after intensive drawing training, he devoted himself to sculpture for several years. At Brancusi's suggestion, he began working directly with stone, without first creating a model in clay or plaster, even though working with stone was harmful to his weak lungs. With the exception of two, all of his sculptures are made of sandstone and almost all are in the form of a head. He was inspired not only by African art, but also by the art of ancient Greece, Egypt, and Khmer art in Cambodia.

He returned to painting in 1913, creating a series called Caryatids, a collection of pastels and watercolors. After 1914, he primarily worked in oil painting. Paul Alexandre was his first major admirer and friend, who helped him, provided him with models and commissions, and remained his main buyer until the outbreak of war, when he was mobilized. Modigliani painted three of his portraits in 1909. When mobilization was declared in August 1914, he also wanted to enlist, but he was excused from military service for health reasons, and the two friends never saw each other again.

Paul Alexandre

Without his patron, Amedeo lived in poverty and often had to move due to rent. He became a well-known bohemian, addicted to alcohol and hashish. Although hashish was common in artistic circles at the time, it was expensive, and Amedeo used it more than others, although never while working. He also smoked opium, often in the company of Apollinaire or Picasso. However, his main addiction was red wine, and Maurice Utrillo was his drinking companion.

While intoxicated, he destroyed almost all of his old paintings, considering them "childish scribbles from the time when he was a damned bourgeois." He mostly gave his drawings to prostitutes or sold them for a few francs, or sometimes exchanged them directly for a plate of food and a glass of alcohol. He was known by the nickname "Modì" in the wider community, a shortened version of his last name, but also a play on words (the French word "maudit" means "cursed"). To his family and friends, he was "Dedo." He refused to accept money from his mother and lived from day to day.

Despite his reckless self-destructive lifestyle and chronically poor health, he always studied and worked diligently. He regularly visited museums, exhibitions, and the studios of fellow artists, and he read extensively. He did not talk about his tuberculosis, and when he suffered a relapse in 1909, he went to his mother in Livorno to recover, where he spent several months.

In 1910, he exhibited six paintings at the Salon des Indépendants, including The Cellist and The Beggar of Livorno, which attracted attention. At the tenth Autumn Salon in 1912, he exhibited eight sculptures in stone under the collective title Heads.

Due to his deteriorating health, he had to abandon sculpture and focused on painting, where he sought his own, independent style. His models typically have graceful forms and elongated necks, with restrained faces often lacking painted eyes. He only painted the eyes on those he knew well. "I paint the eyes only when I know the soul," he said. Perhaps this fondness for unfinished portraits is related to sculpture, where it was common to leave the eyes blank, without realistic details.

The most common subject of his paintings was women. He was attracted to them and experienced intense relationships with them. In 1910, he met Anna Akhmatova, a 21-year-old Russian poet who was staying in the house where he lived. A tender relationship developed between them, although Akhmatova was married. However, after a year, she returned to her husband and went to Russia. The young Italian then entered into a tumultuous love affair with the South African writer Beatrice Hastings. They lived together from 1913 to 1916. She was his model, but he often beat her when he was drunk, and even threw her out the window. In 1914, he met the British painter Nina Hamnett. She was promiscuous, bisexual, and an alcoholic. According to legend, she was the lover of many figures in Montparnasse and was known as the "Queen of Bohemia." In 1916, Modigliani befriended Leopold Zborowski, a Polish poet and gallery owner, his wife Anna, and their family friend, Lunjia Czechowska. Zborowski became his main art dealer and friend in the last years of his life, and he also helped him financially. [Image of Leopold Zborowski] Leopold Zborowski At his urging, Modigliani painted a series of 22 nudes between 1916 and 1919, which became one of the most famous works of his career. Zborowski also organized his first solo exhibition at the Berthe Weill Gallery in Paris in December 1917. The nude paintings caused a scandal at the opening, and the police confiscated them due to public outrage, but this brought Modigliani popularity. He also created a series of portraits of fellow artists, including Pablo Picasso. In July 1917, Modigliani met Jeanne Hébuterne, an 19-year-old art student. Her Catholic family essentially disowned her because she was Jewish. Their relationship was also full of excesses and arguments, but they deeply loved each other. Modigliani's poor health led Zborowski to send him and the pregnant Jeanne to the French Riviera in March 1918. In November 1918, they had a daughter, Jeanne, in Nice, whom Modigliani recognized as his own. During their stay there, he also painted his four known landscapes. He painted 25 portraits of Jeanne, but he never painted her nude. [Image of Jeanne Modigliani] Jeanne Modigliani In May 1919, they returned to Paris, and Modigliani rented a studio where Gauguin had once lived. Jeanne became pregnant again, and he signed a legally binding statement in front of witnesses that he would marry her. However, his health betrayed him again. Just two weeks after a lively New Year's celebration in 1920, he fell ill with a high fever and severe headaches. When a neighbor, the painter Ortiz de Zaratei, came to check on him a few days later to see why he wasn't leaving his apartment, he found him in a state of delirium. Jeanne was kneeling beside the bed, nearly eight months pregnant. Although a doctor was immediately called, it was too late. Modigliani died in the hospital on January 24, 1920, at the age of just 35. Doctors attributed his death to tuberculous meningitis, exacerbated by poverty, overwork, drug abuse, and alcoholism. The day after his funeral, Jeanne committed suicide by jumping from the fifth floor of her parents' house, even though she was pregnant. At the family's request, she was buried in the local cemetery. In 1930, her remains were moved to the Père Lachaise Cemetery, next to Amedeo. Modigliani's sister, Margherita, who lived in Florence, adopted their 15-month-old daughter, Jeanne.[Image of Modigliani and Jeanne Hébuterne at Père Lachaise Cemetery - Wikipedia] A film titled *The Lovers of Montparnasse* was made in 1958, depicting the relationship between Amedeo and Jeanne, with Gérard Philipe playing the painter and Anouk Aimée portraying Jeanne. In 2004, a biographical film called *Modigliani* was released, focusing on the painter's rivalry with Picasso. [Gnews.cz / Wikipedia – Jana Černá]