Amedeo Modigliani - Legacy

Legacy

The linear form of African sculpture and the depictive humanism of the figurative Renaissance painters informed his work. Working during that fertile period of “isms,” Cubism, Dadaism, Surrealism, Futurism, Modigliani did not choose to be categorized within any of these prevailing, defining confines. He was unclassifiable, stubbornly insisting on his difference. He was an artist putting down paint on canvas creating works not to shock and outrage, but to say, “This is what I see.” More appreciated over the years by collectors than academicians and critics, Modigliani was indifferent to staking a claim for himself in the intellectual avant-garde of the art world. One can say he recognized the merit of Jean Cocteau’s proclamation: “Ne t’attendes pas avec l’avante garde,” (“Don’t pay attention to the avante garde”).

Modigliani's sister in Florence adopted their daughter, Jeanne (1918–1984). As an adult, she wrote a biography of her father titled, Modigliani: Man and Myth.