Sidney and Lois Eskenazi Museum of Art

About this Work

Trained in Italy, Amedeo Modigliani came to Paris in 1906, where he associated with some of the city’s leading avant-garde artists. However, his work does not fall easily into any modernist style. His portraits of women with ovular heads, long necks, almond-shaped eyes, and calm expressions evoke comparison with the early Renaissance master Sandro Botticelli.
Although his addiction to drugs and alcohol and his generally dissolute lifestyle affected his artistic production, Modigliani may have made as many as a hundred drawings per day (most on cheap, poor-quality paper). Because many were given to lovers or left with barkeeps and landlords, most were lost or destroyed. This elegant drawing shows Modigliani’s ability to capture a likeness with minimal lines and shading. It may depict his lover and muse Beatrice Hastings, who posed for many of his works in 1914-15, although Modigliani’s simplification and lack of dates and titles makes it difficult to know for sure.