RICHARD  NATHANSON

Amedeo Modigliani

 1884 - 1920

    Caryatid, Frontal View circa 1911

Black crayon, signed bottom right; and stamped with the Paul Alexandre collection mark.

16 ¾ x 10 3/8 inches  42.5 x 26.3 cms  

Provenance: Dr Paul Alexandre, Paris, to whom it was given by Modigliani.

                       By descent to the previous owner.

 Reproduced: Full page, The Unknown Modigliani, Noël Alexandre, Page 294 [no. 253]

                       Fonds Mercator, 1993.

The above book, written by Paul Alexandre’s youngest son Noël, is dedicated:
To my friend Richard Nathanson whose enthusiasm and artistic sensibility have encouraged me

to publish this account.

Exhibited:    Modigliani Drawings from The Collection of Paul Alexandre at:

                      London,     The Royal Academy, 1993.

                      Venice,      Palazzo Grassi, 1993 – 1994.

                      Tokyo,       Ueno Royal Museum, 1994.

                      Bruges,      Centro d’Arte San Giovanni, 1994.

                      Montreal,  The Museum of Fine Art, 1996.

                      Rouen,       Musée des Beaux Arts, 1996.

                      St Tropez,  Musée L’Annonciade, Modigliani, July – October 2010.

 And from May 2004 - May 2005 in Modigliani, Beyond The Myth  at:

                      The Jewish Museum, New York.         

                      Art Gallery of Ontario, Toronto. 

                      The Phillips Collection, Washington.

This powerful, mysterious figure composed of lines drawn without correction or shading, contains elements and influences of fundamental importance in Modigliani’s development.

Modigliani was deeply affected by the haunting, timeless beauty of the female Egyptian sculptures in the Louvre to which the Russian poet Anna Akhmatova recalls their returning, time and again.

In the outline of the hair, face and torso, there are similarities between this drawing and the Louvre’s Egyptian Princess above. However, the head, pursed mouth and closeness of the eyes relate directly to his two sculptures below.

The drawing’s mysterious face, rounded shoulders and breasts, allude also to the Cycladic fertility figures he saw in the Louvre, and found so moving.

Their stylised, often pregnant forms portray no individual likeness, for their owners considered them to possess the magical, life-giving, protective powers of fertility and longevity.

The simple elegance, potent abstraction and quiet continuing presence of these fragile Cycladic figures, after some four and a half thousand years, are among the artistic, spiritual, mystical forces contained in this purely rendered, rich and powerful drawing.

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