Amedeo ModiglianiItalia, 1884–1920Jacques Lipchitz e sua moglie Bertha
Jacques and Berthe Lipchitz
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Art Institute of Chicago
Sala391Chicago, Stati Uniti
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- Fonte
- Il museo
Sul dipinto
Jacques Lipchitz e sua moglie Bertha è un dipinto a olio su tela (81x54 cm) realizzato nel 1916 dal pittore italiano Amedeo Modigliani.
È conservato nell'Art Institute di Chicago.
Jacques Lipchitz (1891-1973), scultore d'avanguardia lituano, era un amico di Modigliani e, come lui, risiedeva a Parigi dal 1909 con la moglie Bertha. Il dipinto, commissionato a Modigliani per le nozze dello scultore da Lipchitz stesso, ritrae le due figure in posizione fortemente asimmetrica: mentre la donna, dal sorriso gentile, è posta in basso a destra come fosse seduta su un'invisibile sedia, Lipchitz si staglia in tutta la sua altezza cingendo la spalla di lei.
Lo scultore fu tra i primi artisti a realizzare sculture in stile cubista.
Con le parole del museo
After receiving his artistic training in Italy, the sculptor and painter Amedeo Modigliani moved to Paris in 1906. Three years later, he helped pioneer a general migration of artists to the neighborhood of Montparnasse, which remained the center of avant-gard activity in the city until World War II. Scores of artists lived there, and many of them shared a Jewish heritage—including Modigliani and his friend the Lithuanian-born sculptor Jacques Lipchitz.
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Lipchitz commissioned Modigliani to paint this portrait on the occasion of his marriage to the Russian poet Berthe Kitrosser, as a way of helping his troubled friend financially. The double portrait is one of only three in the artist’s oeuvre and, according to Lipchitz, took two days to paint. Modigliani made about twenty drawings on the first day; the next day, he declared the picture finished. At the modest price of what Lipchitz remembered as “ten francs per sitting and a little alcohol,” however, he persuaded Modigliani to work on the portrait for another two weeks in an effort to provide more financial assistance to his friend. Despite Modigliani’s exceptional talent, his work found a market only after his death in 1920, which was hastened by tuberculosis and his legendary bohemian lifestyle.
Art Institute of ChicagoCC BY 4.0
Scheda
- Numero di inventario
- 1926.221
Che cosa raffigura
In catalogo
Fonti
- Art Institute of Chicago
- Immagine: Art Institute of Chicago — CC0
Nel frattempo, nella vita di Amedeo Modigliani
Tutta la vitaby 1914
Gives up sculpture for painting
By 1914 Modigliani abandons sculpting and focuses solely on painting, a move precipitated by the difficulty of acquiring sculptural materials once the war breaks out, and by his physical debilitation.
June 1914
Beatrice Hastings
Modigliani meets the talented and eccentric Englishwoman Beatrice Hastings, a poet and columnist for The New Age, who becomes his companion, muse and favourite model: he devotes 14 portraits to her. The relationship lasts about two years.
1916
Léopold Zborowski, friend and dealer
Modigliani befriends the Polish poet and art dealer Léopold Zborowski and his wife Anna; in the artist’s final years Zborowski is his primary dealer and friend. He lends Modigliani his apartment, supplies models and painting materials, and pays him between fifteen and twenty francs a day.
spring 1917
Meets Jeanne Hébuterne
In the spring of 1917 the Ukrainian sculptor Chana Orloff introduces Modigliani to a 19-year-old art student, Jeanne Hébuterne, who has posed for Foujita. Her conservative, devoutly Catholic family renounces her for her liaison with a Jew, but she soon lives with Modigliani anyway and becomes a principal subject of his art.
3 December 1917
His first solo exhibition — and the police
An exhibition of Modigliani’s nudes opens at Berthe Weill’s gallery in Paris, his first solo show in the city. The gallery stands opposite a police station, and the officers, outraged by the nudes, force the show to close on its opening day.
1918
Flight to the south: Cagnes-sur-Mer and Nice
Fearing a German invasion, Modigliani leaves Paris with Jeanne Hébuterne, the Zborowskis and Chaïm Soutine for the south of France, first to Cagnes-sur-Mer and then to Nice. He returns to portraiture and sends the finished canvases to Paris for sale.
