The Unknown Modigliani: Drawings from the Collection of Paul Alexandre [Hardcover]

Noel Alexandre (Author), Paul Alexandre (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: October 1993

A book which presents 450 drawings by Amedeo Modigliani (1884-1920), which have not previously been published or exhibited. The drawings were purchased and collected by the French physician Paul Alexandre, who, shortly after Modigliani's arrival in Paris in 1906, became the artist's closest friend, doctor and only patron, regularly buying drawings. Dr. Alexandre, who died in 1968, always intended to write a book about the artist to correct the myths regarding his premature death in 1920. In this book, his son, historian Noel Alexandre, has written a biography based on his father's memories and documents from his father's estate, including a 10-page letter from Modigliani's mother describing in detail her son's youth in Livorno.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

This stunning volume, an art-historical event, reproduces some 450 drawings by Amedeo Modigliani (1884-1920) never before published or exhibited. Including graceful female nudes, caryatids, portraits, impressions of the theater and circus, sculptural heads and studies for paintings, these drawings were made between 1906 and 1914, after the artist's move to Paris at the age of 22. In the best of them one sees flashes of Modigliani's mature style. French physician Paul Alexandre, Modigliani's friend and patron, bought the drawings and hoarded them for decades. His son, historian Noel Alexandre, provides a biographical sketch of Modigliani interwoven with his father's reminiscences, letters to and from the painter, photographs of the artist and his milieu, color reproductions of oil paintings, and a 10-page letter from Eugenia Modigliani, the artist's mother, filling in details of his youth in Livorno. This catalogue documents a globe-trotting exhibit that comes to the U.S. in 1995.
Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Booklist

Paul Alexandre was a young doctor with a passion for art and the company of artists when Modigliani arrived in Paris in 1906 and the two men became close friends almost right off the bat. Alexandre zealously collected every Modigliani drawing he could get his hands on, always intending to publish them and write about his inspired friend, but he died without realizing this dream. Now Alexandre's son has made his father's stunning collection of 450 Modigliani drawings accessible for the first time, adding incalculably to our understanding of the artist's methods and aesthetic. Executed rapidly and with a natural grace and spontaneity, these highly sculptural and charmingly sensual studies of figures and faces are wonderfully intimate and revealing. Inspired by African and Khmer sculpture, Modigliani achieved a remarkable stylization, simplification, and purity of line and form. Alexandre has also made good use of selected papers and photographs of his father's, providing us with fresh insights into Modigliani's personality and social milieu. An exciting and illuminating volume. Donna Seaman

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 480 pages
• Publisher: Harry N Abrams; First U.S. Edition edition (October 1993)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0810936429
• ISBN-13: 978-0810936423
• Product Dimensions: 13.5 x 10.2 x 1.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 6.8 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,484,583 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars This is a big book., April 7, 2002

By 

Bruce P. Barten (Saint Paul, MN United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Unknown Modigliani: Drawings from the Collection of Paul Alexandre (Hardcover)

I never really had to draw artistically, but I spent years drafting mechanical objects, carefully placing straight lines in proportionally accurate positions. Having a book like this is much less embarrassing than signing up for a drawing class and having personal responsibility for drawings which don't look good, for whatever reason. The ability to draw is a major basis for art, as far as I am concerned, and a lot of the mechanics are obvious once a technique is successfully demonstrated. Anything you see in this book can be believed, and possibly even understood, artistically. This book also provides a short history in art, mainly about one person in Paris from 1906 to 1913, who had a friend who told him "Don't throw anything away." (Page 9 explains how "Paul Alexandre begged his friend not to destroy a single sketchbook, a single study.") There are, in addition to hundreds of drawings, some oil paintings reproduced in this book. On page 88 is one which was bought by the author's father because the person who commissioned The Amazon, 1909, rejected it (she might have thought that the eyes were too large; "The Baroness did not like her portrait very much and recognized herself in it still less when Modigliani decided at the last moment that he had to repaint her red jacket in yellow." p. 89), so it was purchased by Paul Alexandre.

First, I am impressed that black and white photographs from that era can be reproduced so large and well. The people (see pages 14, 18, 20, 33, 45, 49, 51, 72, 79, 107) and places in Paris (pages 22, 36, 68, 70, 71, 81), postcards from Livorno, Modigliani's native town (pp. 108-9) and even a book by Nietzsche, Ainsi parlait Zarathoustra on page 63, fill these pages nicely. The manuscript notes reproduced on some pages are usually in French. Part of one is translated as "Equilibrium by means of opposite extremes." (p. 92). Earlier it was mentioned that Modigliani was not the type of person who kept track of things in a journal, so "these brief lines are particularly precious to us, even if, in the absence of any other documentation, we are unable to understand their full meaning." (pp. 92-93).

Secondly, there are explanations of the elements of Modigliani's sculptures and pictures. One feature which he drew a number of times, caryatids, are defined at the beginning of a section discussing those drawings. "Another setting which is theatrical in character is created by the architectural use of caryatids in place of pilasters or columns to support the entablature of a building." (p. 189) There are foldout pages of the drawings which follow, so that, after seeing the figures on page 193, and turning to page 194, the next page which is visible is page 199, which lists the contents of pages 195-198, which are hidden until 194 and 199 are folded out to reveal the four pictures inside side by side. This might be set up this way because plate 108 shows a Hermaphrodite caryatid, frontal view, which was supposed to be hidden from anyone who didn't know where to look for it. The other ones might have been hidden because they were smiling, or too luscious, and placed there as a special reward for those who happened to be reading the book slowly enough to discover them.

Thirdly, the next section, Sculptural heads, starting on page 237, doesn't have much to say, but the comparison of the drawings of Head in left profile runs from pages 255 to 263, without numbers on some pages. Plate 194, Head in left profile with earring; Blue crayon heightened with red gouache, is large and colorful. In the later sections of the book, there is a study with blue ink on page 368, and my favorite color in the book is the blue ink on pages 389, 390, and 392. This is, again, a series with pages that fold out, and the comparison with other pictures makes the blue particularly splendiferous. This book has 463 pages, and you need to read slowly enough to find them all.