RE Modigliani, the Melancholy Angel, Musée de Luxembourg, Marc Restellini, 2002.
SCH Amedeo Modigliani, Werner Schmalenbach, 2005.
SE Le Silence éternel, Marc Restellini, 2007.
SI Modigliani: A Biography, Pierre Sichel, 1967.
SII Interviews by John Olliver for Modigliani: A Biography, Sichel.
TRIB “Montparnasse à l’Époque Heroïque,” Émile Lejeune, Tribune de Genève, 1964.
UM The Unknown Modigliani: Drawings from the Collection of Paul Alexandre, Noël Alexandre, 1994.
VEN Modigliani in Venice, Between Leghorn and Paris, Christian Parisot, ed., 2005.
WAY Modigliani and the Artists of Montparnasse, Kenneth Wayne, 2002.
CHAPTER ONE · THE PROBLEM
“Modigliani manages … to convey”: Kenneth E. Silver and Romy Golan, The Circle of Montparnasse, p. 31.
the religious power: RA, p. 140.
“this young Tuscan”: RA, p. 20.
“something like a curse”: RA, p. 23.
“The little Jew”: RA, p. 23.
“so many inaccuracies”: SII, p. 67.
“One marvels”: “the truth held”: CR, pp. 11–12.
synonymous with eccentricity: SE, p. 346.
“tormented garret dweller”: New York Times, March 1, 1961.
“extremely vulgar”: Ronald Meyer, trans., Anna Akhmatova: My Half-Century, p. 83.
“art historical mindset”: BTM, p. 81.
“Drunken, ranting and stoned”: Guardian, July 4, 2006.
“the most mythologized”: RA, p. 19.
“those compound faces”: QFC, p. 9.
CHAPTER TWO · THE CLUES
“Les démons du hasard selon
Le chant du firmament nous mènent
A sons perdus leurs violons
Font danser notre race humaine
Sur la descente à reculons.”
—Alcools: Poèmes 1898–1913, p. 36.
“Frustration and poverty”: QFC, p. 31.
“self-tortured and defeated”: QFC, idem.
“a built-in, shock-proof”: The Writer’s Quotation Book, p. 55.
their partner was another Englishman: RA, p. 66.
“a little foolish”: PAR, p. 10.
wearing only a shirt: PAR, pp. 7–8.
confessed to the crime: PAR, p. 9.
a gentle manner: PAR, p. 10.
pervasive sadness: PAR, p. 15.
waves of cholera: Encyclopædia Britannica, p. 617.
“human waste disposal”: PL, p. 372.
the cumulative effects: In The Big Necessity, Rose George wrote that cholera victims who do not have access to clean water or salts, as is still common, are subject to stomach and muscle cramps, can lose up to 30 percent of their body weight within hours, will turn blue, their eyes will film over, and death follows.
life expectancy in 1850: PL, p. 331.
“a personal remedy”: PAR, p. 20.
“so many figs”: PAR, p. 20.
their miracle worker: PAR, p. 20.
“article of faith”: PAR, p. 20.
“a magical world”: Meryle Secrest, Being Bernard Berenson, p. 275.
“phlegmatic temperaments”: UM, p. 28.
“to enjoy life”: UM, p. 28.
but ran an agency: JM, pp. 4–5.
managing a lead mine: Adrio Bocci, Bulletin of the Orobic Mineral Group.
“crawling” with servants: PAR, p. 15.
“en grand tralala”: PAR, p. 15.
His authority was absolute: PAR, p. 16.
a school for peasants: VEN, pp. 27–8.
“intellectual stupor”: PAR, p. 21.
both knew she was dying: PAR, p. 21.
“all the more agonizing”: PAR, p. 21.
“a persecution complex”: SI, p. 29.
equally unbalanced: SI, p. 55.
“give his property”: BAR, p. 201.
“early morning conversations!”: PAR, p. 22.
She was pregnant again: PAR, p. 27.
in the year 5644: PAR, p. 52.
“tears and anguish”: PAR, p. 27.
CHAPTER THREE · “DEDO”
was very cultured: PAR, p. 67.
“her gruff, but faithful”: GE, p. 120, September 24, 1928. Flaminio Modigliani died on September 21, 1928, and is buried in the Jewish Cemetery in Livorno.
“solitary by nature”: PAR, p. 25.
“to get rid of you”: PAR, p. 26.
“she is happier”: PAR, p. 29.
“A bit spoiled”: PAR, p. 29.
They “played freely”: PL, p. 204.
“exchanges of affection”: PL, p. 208.
“my deepest gratitude”: PAR, pp. 32–33.
“an embittered, irascible”: JM, pp. 13–14.
“the best merchandise”: Leo Rosten, The Joys of Yiddish, p. 405.
“He understood me”: PAR, p. 13.
“a breeze of fantasy”: JM, p. 15.
“How many impossible”: BAR, pp. 84–85.
“The last thing”: Idem, p. 88.
Her essays were good enough: June Rose, Modigliani: The Pure Bohemian, p. 25.
Caught telling a joke: Photograph in VEN, p. 40.
“Perhaps an artist?”: PAR, p. 59.
individual curricula: VEN, p. 39.
report card is blank: PAR, p. 56.
“a terrible fright”: PAR, p. 59, on April 20, 1896.
“an impossible ideal”: PAR, p. 39, on May 26, 1897.
“My poor father”: PAR, p. 39, on April 20, 1896.
passed his bar mitzvah: PAR, p. 40, on August 10, 1897.
already an artist: PAR, p. 42, on July 17, 1896.
“a private tragedy”: PL, p. 160.
“arbitrary decisions”: PL, p. 160.
“Fierce Wish”: Quoted in Modigliani, p. 22.
son of workers: GE, pp. 25–29, no date.
he was a windbag: GE to Margherita Modigliani in 1896, p. 24.
“We don’t know why”: PAR, p. 42, on June 30, 1898.
“mad with fear”: PAR, p. 42.
offering to pay: SI, p. 37.
symptoms of typhoid: Encyclopædia Britannica, pp. 646–47.
He spoke of Segantini: Giovanni Segantini (1858–1899) was an Italian painter of Alpine landscapes and Neo-Impressionism; Peter and Linda Murray, Art & Artists, p. 381.
“ ‘When you are cured’ ”: UM, p. 29.
lessons had begun: SI, p. 37.
“he will neglect”: PAR, p. 42.
“The sick boy”: UM, p. 29.
back on his feet: PAR, p. 62, December 3, 1898.
CHAPTER FOUR · THE BLOOD-RED BANNER
We met in a desperate cellar
In the days of our ill-dressed youth
And smoked and talked until sunrise
Caught up in those words—those words
Whose meaning will have to be changed;
Solemn young men and erroneous.
—Poem read at the marriage of André Salmon. Guillaume Apollinaire, Alcools: Poèmes 1898–1913, p. 91.
in the via delle Siepe: PAR, p. 65.
“the sight of laundry”: Silvestra Bietoletti, The Macchiaioli, pp. 10–26.
“Dedo was doing a charcoal drawing”: JM, p. 24.
small and sickly: PAR, p. 67.
“introverted and very shy”: PAR, p. 67.
his anger was unpredictable: PAR, p. 67.
“his favorite Old Masters”: PAR, p. 68.
“a dead-end art”: John Russell, Modigliani, Arts Council of Great Britain, p. 5.
discovered a signature: VEN, p. 34.
“a look of agony”: Kenneth Clark, Another Part of the Wood, pp. 181–82.
willing chambermaids: UM, pp. 29–30.
“shiftless and idle”: UM, pp. 29–30.
“The tone of voice”: JM, p. xiii.
“he was distinguished”: PAR, p. 69.
“draws very well”: JM, pp. 20–21.
as a punishment: UM, p.
30.
half the population: René and Jean Dubos, The White Plague, p. 9.
“started a suit”: The White Plague, pp. 43–44.
“[a] mouse gnawing”: The White Plague, p. 40.
“delicate in modeling”: Thomas M. Daniel, Captain of Death, p. 34.
“wonderful aesthetic hair”: The White Plague, p. 57.
dead of consumption: The White Plague, p. 40.
“Detach the delicate”: The White Plague, p. 247.
“Since early tuberculosis”: Encyclopædia Britannica, p. 75.
“Different phenomena”: Sheila M. Rothman, Living in the Shadow of Death, pp. 16–17.
“the hemorrhage returned”: Living in the Shadow of Death, p. 29.
“Father said again”: Sue Prideaux, Edvard Munch, p. 25.
“its blood-red banner”: Edvard Munch, p. 24.
“I cough and cough”: John Middleton Murry, ed., Journal of Katherine Mansfield, p. 155.
did not come until World War II: Dr. Ann Medinger. Tuberculosis is still the second largest cause of death by infection, with 1.6 million deaths a year (the first is AIDS). Worldwide, a third of the current population is believed to be infected, although most cases are not full-blown. (Harvard Magazine, March–April 2009, p. 23).
“a violent hemorrhage”: UM, p. 30.
there was no treatment: Dr. Ann Medinger; Captain of Death, p. 197.
“gazing ‘on and on’ ”: Thomas Mann, The Magic Mountain, p. 189.
He was gaining weight: UM, p. 30.
he would sit transfixed: Idem.
He was fascinated: JM, pp. 188–89.
“You must paint”: UM, p. 31.
“the ‘beatific vision’ ”: New Yorker, April 20, 2009.
Ghiglia was the one: SI, p. 48.
“as if in a mystic garden”: SI, p. 51.
“a springlike place”: April 1, 1901; SI, pp. 51–52.
“the beauties of Rome”: SI, p. 53.
“I will try”: SI, p. 54.
“a fertile stream”: SI, p. 53.
“strong forces”: SI, p. 53.
“flies to wanton boys”: Shakespeare, King Lear, Act IV, Scene I.
“ ‘Why me?’ ”: Edvard Munch, p. 26.
“He fights for”: Walter Kaufmann, ed., The Portable Nietzsche, p. 53.
“The ordinary man”: Meryle Secrest, Frank Lloyd Wright, p. 212.
“People like us”: SI, p. 55.
“I am a wild bird”: Frank Lloyd Wright, p. 213.
“maximum creative power”: SI, p. 56.
“facing the risks”: SI, p. 53.
CHAPTER FIVE · THE PERFECT LINE
“a button in your pants”: PAR, p. 68.
“would always turn back”: Aldo Santini, Maledetto dai Livornesi, p. 58.
“It greatly amused him”: SCH, p. 197.
“A public man”: PL, p. 252.
“Watch him promenade”: BAR, p. 208.
its short average life span: PL, p. 331.
“without any complications”: UM, p. 31.
Margherita was not pleased: UM, idem.
Modigliani moved to Venice: BTM, p. 190.
daily museum visits: BTM, idem.
“looked older”: SI, p. 58.
“Painting only faute de mieux”: JM, p. 31.
“oblique placing of the heads”: JM, idem.
“I can’t see yet”: PAR, p. 44.
“eating fried fish”: SCH, p. 20.
“He would spend”: SCH, p. 197.
“a vague abstract”: PAR, p. 82.
“Venice, head of Medusa”: SII, p. 56.
“He immediately began”: PAR, p. 82.
“he could never be happy”: February 1905, PAR, p. 43.
a small allowance: PAR, p. 79.
His sister also believed: VEN, p. 44.
a last-ditch effort: SCH, p. 197.
“The gesture grew”: Richard Ellmann, Oscar Wilde, p. 504.
“a strange fatality”: Idem, p. 92.
“I am a reflection”: April 20, 1896, PAR, p. 37.
“What a dream”: Patrice Higonnet, Paris, pp. 244–45.
“too gorgeously hot”: John Dos Passos, The Fourteenth Chronicle, p. 250.
gasoline and roasting chestnuts: November 24, 1908, Abel Warshawsky, Adventures with Colors and Brush, manuscript, Archives of American Art, p. viii.
arriving in the autumn: SII, interview, p. 1.
“atrociously delightful”: The Fourteenth Chronicle, p. 102.
a city of art: Brian N. Morton, Americans in Paris, p. 11.
Cézanne had just died: Alistair Horne, Seven Ages of Paris, p. 297.
“there were more artists”: Colin Jones, Paris, Biography of a City, p. 426.
ruined all sense of form: Adventures with Colors and Brush, p. III.
“Toutes les rues”: “All streets are tributaries / when you love this river in which all the blood of Paris flows,” Philippe Soupault, quoted in Paris, p. 389.
“they had just disembarked”: Marevna, Life with the Painters of La Ruche, p. 28.
“The acrid smell”: Americans in Paris, p. 70.
looking for the next style: Adventures with Colors and Brush, pp. xxxii–xxxiii.
very small portraits: SCH, p. 197.
a blond washerwoman: PAR, 110.
“He drew from life”: SCH, p. 198.
“a certain smile”: PAR, p. 97.
He admired Whistler: SCH, p. 197.
Modigliani’s search for style: SCH, pp. 200–01.
“our conversations”: SII, interview, p. 1.
“From the rue Lepic”: SCH, p. 201.
“wretched huts”: PL, pp. 395–96.
“a vast space”: PAR, p. 101.
“wild disorder”: Charles Douglas, Artist Quarter, pp. 84–85.
“a tumbledown shack”; “For four sous”: SCH, p. 197.
CHAPTER SIX · LA VIE DE BOHÈME
“under the lamps”: Francis Carco, The Last Bohemia, pp. 104, 108.
Picasso’s mural: Philippe Jullian, Montmartre, p. 173.
“his special cocktail”: Idem.
“too good to be true”: John Richardson, A Life of Picasso, vol. 1, p. 374.
the café’s charm: The Last Bohemia, p. 108.
“full of imagination”: SCH, p. 197.
“freshness of perception”: SCH, p. 191.
“pure Roman profile”: SCH, p. 204.
“full of interest”: SCH, p. 112.
a rash of early imitators: Charles Douglas, Artist Quarter, p. 46.
Clesinger’s outfit: Nigel Gosling, Nadar, p. 165.
the suit of faded velvet: PAR, p. 288.
“colour harmonies”: Artist Quarter, p. 112.
“a gentleman and a parvenu”: PAR, p. 290.
“our aristocrat”: PAR, p. 274.
living in Montmartre: PAR, p. 97.
“[T]he huge building”: Montmartre, p. 163.
“so jerry-built”: A Life of Picasso, vol. 1, p. 298.
“the artistic manner”: Montmartre, p. 34.
“a society of friends”: Idem.
sometime in 1907: Artist Quarter, p. 89.
“your rotten junk”: Idem, p. 90.
“spells of fasting”: Nigel Gosling, The Adventurous World of Paris 1900–1914, p. 59.
“enough left for luxury”: The Last Bohemia, p. 129.
“her god”: Ambrogio Ceroni, “Les Souvenirs de Lunia Czechowska,” Amedeo Modigliani, Peintre, p. 28.
“dishes and glasses” Billy Klüver and Julie Martin, Kiki’s Paris, p. 66.
“He was very proud”: SCH, p. 197.
poets and philosophers: Arthur Pfannstiel, Modigliani et son oeuvre, p. 8.
“I would often go”: Vanni Scheiwiller, ed., Modigliani vivo, testimonianze inedite e rare, p. 140.
might even have been disoriented: Modigliani et son oeuvre, p. 8.
“You can’t imagine”: Idem, p. 11.
“Everything in Dedo”: SCH, p. 195.
“Picasso would kick”: Modigliani et son oeuvre, p. 11.
“Painting is too complicated”: H. S. Ede, Savage Messiah, p. 27 (May 24, 1910).
court the masons: Artist Quarter, p. 85.
a total spectacle: SII, interview, p. 2.
“and kiss it”: Alfred Werner, Modigliani the Sculptor, p. xvi.
“Although friends sympathized”: John Richardson, A Life of Picasso, vol. 2, p. 17.
“How great he is”: Modigliani the Sculptor, p. xvi.
“If I give”: June Rose, Modigliani, the Pure Bohemian, pp. 56–57.
“My parents had”: Interview with author.
“I was called out”: UM, p. 43.
“The consumption of alcohol”: PL, p. 636.
drugs a way of life: A Life of Picasso, vol. 1, p. 320; Max Jacob was “so addicted”: Idem.
“drinking strange concoctions”: The Adventurous World of Paris 1900–1914, p. 74.
“it was believed”: PL, p. 633.
“Montmartre, at this time”: Artist Quarter, pp. 94–95.
“We ate the paste”: Marevna, Life with the Painters of La Ruche, p. 116.
“Late one night”: UM, p. 53.
“Modigliani charmed”: Idem, p. 59.
“his visual memory”: Idem, p. 62.
“extraordinary freshness”: Idem, p. 65.
“We never saw her”: Idem, p. 54.
a moderate drinker: SCH, pp. 197, 201.
“Certainly he drank”: Idem, p. 189.
Vouvray or Asti: Modigliani et son oeuvre, p. 9.
“You know when”: To author.
he experimented: UM, p. 53; “It was as if”: Idem.
“one of the most original”: The Yale Dictionary of Art and Artists, p. 97.
“irreducible organic form”: Herbert Read, A Concise History of Modern Painting, pp. 101–102.
“like a Russian muzhik”: The Diary of Anaïs Nin, vol. 2, p. 47.
“a born aristocrat”: Modigliani et son oeuvre, p. 59.
a fierce argument: UM, p. 60.
“a taste for danger”: Idem, p. 59.
“Bohemia has nothing”: SE, p. 4.
dominated the evening: PAR, p. 307.
did not seem to matter: UM, p. 60.
He had found: Modigliani et son oeuvre, p. 13.
“a queer mystic group”: Savage Messiah, p. 27. (May 24, 1910.)
CHAPTER SEVEN · THE SERPENT’S SKIN
“in desperate straits”: UM, p. 75.
“instability you were aware”: UM, p. 80.
“usual credit system”: Idem.
“I don’t need to tell”: Idem, p. 78.
experiment with Fauvism: RE, p. 112.
Meryle Secrest Page 39
