Modigliani : a life / Jeffrey Meyers.

Includes bibliographical references (p. 261-263) and index.

Livorno childhood, 1884-1899 -- Italian journey, 1900-1905 -- Down and out in Paris, 1906-1908 -- Aristocrat in rags, 1906-1908 -- Carving direct, 1909-1910 -- Artificial paradise, 1911-1912 -- Jews in Paris, 1913 -- Wild colonial girl, 1914-1916 -- Inner eye, 1915-1916 -- Simone and Jeanne, 1917-1918 -- Beyond pleasure, 1916-1918 -- Light in Nice, 1918-1919 -- Soul's midnight, 1920.

In 1920, at the age of thirty-five, Amedeo Modigliani died in poverty and neglect in Paris, much like a figure out of La Boheme. His life had been as dramatic as his death. An Italian Jew from a bourgeois family, "Modi" had a weakness for drink, hashish, and the many women - including the Russian poet Anna Akhmatova - who were drawn to his good looks. His friends included Picasso, Utrillo, Soutine, and other important artists of his day, yet his own work stood apart, generating little interest while he lived. Today's art world, however, acknowledges him as a master whose limited oeuvre-sculptures, portraits, and some of the most appealing nudes in the whole of modern art-cannot satisfy collectors' demand. Jeffrey Meyers sketches Modigliani and the art he produced, illuminating not only this little-known figure but also the painters, writers, lovers, and others who inhabited early twentieth-century Paris with him.

English.