In Livorno it is already Modigliani-mania. Here's a preview of photos from the exhibition on the great painter

Modigliani-mania has already broken out in Livorno: in fact, the whole city is abuzz about the exhibition Modigliani and the Montparnasse Adventure. Masterpieces from the Netter and Alexandre Collections, the exhibition with which Livorno celebrates one of its most illustrious sons, the painter Amedeo Modigliani (Livorno, 1884 - Paris, 1920), on the centenary of his death. The exhibition, scheduled at the new Museo della Città from Nov. 7, 2019, to Feb. 16, 2020, is curated by Marc Restellini and coordinated by Sergio Risaliti, and offers the public as many as 133 works, including 26 by Modigliani (14 drawings and 12 paintings), all from the collections of Jonas Netter and Paul Alexandre, who were among the artist’s earliest patrons.

The exhibition offers a lunge into the relationship between Modigliani, Netter and Alexandre (and there is also an interesting work by Jeanne Hébuterne, Modigliani’s companion until his death and even beyond, we might say: a few hours after the painter’s death, devastated by grief, she took her own life, in what was one of the most tragic dramas in art history), but it ranges far beyond that, recounting how the conspicuous collections of Netter (a sales representative) and Alexandre (a doctor) were formed, whose earnings subsidized many artists, including Modigliani himself. This is rounded out by paintings by major figures of the time, such as Suzanne Valadon, Maurice Utrillo, André Derain, Maurice de Vlaminck, Moïse Kisling, and Chaïm Soutine-all artists with whom Modigliani knew and with whom he shared large portions of his path. The exhibition is then rounded out by the next generation, with important works by artists such as Isaac Antcher, Eugène Ã?biche, Jean Hélion, Jan Waclaw Zawadowski, Henri Hayden, Pinchus Krémègne, Marcel Gaillard and several others who supplied works to Netter and Alexandre between the 1920s and 1930s.

“The exhibition,” emphasizes curator Restellini, “is a homecoming, I am happy for this occasion and I thank and congratulate the entire Administration for the courage and speed of the choices. There could not have been a better decision to bring the Modigliani exhibition to his city on the centennial anniversary of his death. Here in Livorno Amedeo Modigliani developed his creative capacity and Jewish spiritualism, and here in Livorno I hope that history, and not just the market, can take advantage of this wonderful opportunity to give him his rightful place in the history of Western art.”

“Dedo has returned to Livorno, to his city, where he was born, raised and educated,” says the mayor of the Labronian city, Luca Salvetti. “And Livorno has prepared to host all those who will come to greet the great painter. Piazza del Luogo Pio, which houses the Museo della Città where the exhibition is set up, has become beautiful and it will be a pleasure to walk through it. It has changed its appearance and become a real European square with a pedestrian area, turf, trees and a large portal 6 meters high and 8 meters wide in the shape of the logo of the City Museum, a passageway through which the exhibition is accessed. Next January 24 marks the 100th anniversary of Amedeo Modigliani’s death, and Livorno will know how to pay tribute to its best-known citizen, a man who broke the rational and conservative molds of his time and devoted his short life to the search for a personal artistic dimension. In his famous portraits Modigliani transferred the psychological aspects of the characters he portrayed; he spent many hours with his subjects before painting, trying, precisely, to understand the inner profile of those in front of him. Modigliani, Jewish and of refined culture, fully reflected the character of the Leghorn, irreverent and ready for the ironic joke, intelligent and elegant, full of charm. An artist who always sought to assert his artistic independence, even choosing to leave the Leghorn Macchiaiola school in which he had grown up and move to Paris.This exhibition is a unique and unrepeatable opportunity. An event that has exceptional significance for Livorno. Amedeo Modigliani is returning to his hometown. He would have liked to do so in that distant 1920 when life left him, he would have liked to return to live in Livorno with his Jeanne. He had told his painter friends, many in Paris knew. But fate had other aims for him. 100 years after his death, we have managed, with great courage, to bring Dedo’s soul back to his city. Soul represented by his works, the most beautiful ones, which for three months will find a home in the halls of the City Museum. Here we have created a new display, to be used for subsequent exhibitions: it will be like an elegant dress to be shown off in the most beautiful situations.I am sure that Livorno will respond with great participation, recovering the cultural identity that distinguished it in past centuries. We want many others of the same artistic and cultural depth to be born around this great event.”

“This exhibition,” explains Culture Councilor Simone Lenzi, "has historical value for the city of Livorno. The adjective does not seem excessive, because this is how history works: it establishes appointments to which we must have the courage to present ourselves. The Centenary of Modigliani’s death is one of them. Or rather, it is the appointment that, finally, we can no longer miss. The value of this exhibition is then that of an important celebration, but not only that. It serves to welcome back Amedeo Modigliani, or rather Dedo, to the city where he was born and raised. But it also serves to put an end to that long misunderstanding, generated by the waste of a cheap romanticism and posthumous legends, which distorted, to the point of unrecognizability, the deep filial relationship between Livorno and this son of his who was destined to become the most extraordinary painter of the 20th century. Indeed, we believe that the city that had remained in Modigliani’s eyes and heart was made of a precise light. Of certain glimpses of streets, of friends from his youth, of schoolmates. Of a specific Jewish-Sephardic spirituality, of vivid family memories. Of so many things that, starting with this exhibition, will finally have to be told as part of a single story, however much it still reverberates in the present. In the meantime, I like to recall that, in the very years when Modigliani was leaving an indelible mark on the history of painting, the poet Reiner Maria Rilke, with impressive precision, described childhood as the time when ’we were up to the brim filled with figures.’ To explain to us, in short, that those figures are precisely what we endure all our lives in. Whether, then, we remain living in a provincial town, which nevertheless has, from its origins, a history of extraordinary cosmopolitan modernity, or whether we leave to amaze the world in an artist’s studio in Montparnasse, that fullness of images in which we were born and raised is destined to determine our gaze forever. And that gaze, which originated here, returns here today."

Below are preview images of the exhibition. A thorough review will follow in the coming weeks.

Images from the exhibition Modigliani and the Montparnasse Adventure. Masterpieces from the Netter and Alexandre Collections

Images from the exhibition Modigliani and the Montparnasse Adventure.Masterpieces from the Netter and Alexandre Collections

Images from the exhibition Modigliani and the Montparnasse Adventure. Masterpieces from the Netter and Alexandre Collections

Images from the exhibition Modigliani and the Montparnasse Adventure. Masterpieces from the Netter and Alexandre Collections

Images from the exhibition Modigliani and the Montparnasse Adventure. Masterpieces from the Netter and Alexandre Collections

Images from the exhibition Modigliani and the Montparnasse Adventure. Masterpieces from the Netter and Alexandre Collections

Images from the exhibition Modigliani and the Montparnasse Adventure. Masterpieces from the Netter and Alexandre Collections

Images from the exhibition Modigliani and the Montparnasse Adventure. Masterpieces from the Netter and Alexandre Collections

Images from the exhibition Modigliani and the Montparnasse Adventure. Masterpieces from the Netter and Alexandre Collections

Images from the exhibition Modigliani and the Montparnasse Adventure. Masterpieces from the Netter and Alexandre Collections

Images from the exhibition Modigliani and the Montparnasse Adventure. Masterpieces from the Netter and Alexandre Collections

Images from the exhibition Modigliani and the Montparnasse Adventure. Masterpieces from the Netter and Alexandre Collections

Images from the exhibition Modigliani and the Montparnasse Adventure. Masterpieces from the Netter and Alexandre Collections

Images from the exhibition Modigliani and the Montparnasse Adventure. Masterpieces from the Netter and Alexandre Collections

Images from the exhibition Modigliani and the Montparnasse Adventure. Masterpieces from the Netter and Alexandre Collections

Images from the exhibition Modigliani and the Montparnasse Adventure. Masterpieces from the Netter and Alexandre Collections

Images from the exhibition Modigliani and the Montparnasse Adventure. Masterpieces from the Netter and Alexandre Collections

Images from the exhibition Modigliani and the Montparnasse Adventure. Masterpieces from the Netter and Alexandre Collections

Images from the exhibition Modigliani and the Montparnasse Adventure. Masterpieces from the Netter and Alexandre Collections

Images from the exhibition Modigliani and the Montparnasse Adventure. Masterpieces from the Netter and Alexandre Collections

Images from the exhibition Modigliani and the Montparnasse Adventure. Masterpieces from the Netter and Alexandre Collections

Images from the exhibition Modigliani and the Montparnasse Adventure. Masterpieces from the Netter and Alexandre Collections

Images from the exhibition Modigliani and the Montparnasse Adventure. Masterpieces from the Netter and Alexandre Collections

Images from the exhibition Modigliani and the Montparnasse Adventure. Masterpieces from the Netter and Alexandre Collections

Images from the exhibition Modigliani and the Montparnasse Adventure. Masterpieces from the Netter and Alexandre Collections

Images from the exhibition Modigliani and the Montparnasse Adventure. Masterpieces from the Netter and Alexandre Collections

Images from the exhibition Modigliani and the Montparnasse Adventure. Masterpieces from the Netter and Alexandre Collections

Images from the exhibition Modigliani and the Montparnasse Adventure. Masterpieces from the Netter and Alexandre Collections

Images from the exhibition Modigliani and the Montparnasse Adventure. Masterpieces from the Netter and Alexandre Collections

Images from the exhibition Modigliani and the Montparnasse Adventure. Masterpieces from the Netter and Alexandre Collections

Images from the exhibition Modigliani and the Montparnasse Adventure. Masterpieces from the Netter and Alexandre Collections

Images from the exhibition Modigliani and the Montparnasse Adventure. Masterpieces from the Netter and Alexandre Collections

Warning: the translation into English of the original Italian article was created using automatic tools. We undertake to review all articles, but we do not guarantee the total absence of inaccuracies in the translation due to the program. You can find the original by clicking on the ITA button. If you find any mistake,please contact us.