MASP

Before moving to Paris in 1906, Modigliani studied in the academies of Florence and Venice, in Italy. In the French capital, he lived in the district of Montmartre, which was also home to many other artists including Pablo Picasso (1881–1973), whom Modigliani became friends with. In 1909, he met Romanian sculptor Constantin Brancusi (1876–1957), an influence that led him to dedicate himself exclusively to sculpture until 1914, when he returned to painting. Modigliani was an alcoholic who lived in poverty, dying at the age of 36 from consumptive meningitis. In the context of the School of Paris, he developed a style that refers to cubism, with figures that tend toward geometric stylization, as in the faces of African masks. His characters also bear a melancholy that recalls Italian Renaissance madonnas. His portraits and nudes are painted on neutral, nearly monochromatic backgrounds, though marked by brushstrokes. The necks are elongated, the faces elliptical, and the lines delicate. MASP has six paintings by the artist, all made between 1915 and 1919. They include Portrait of Leopold Zborowski, a Polish poet who moved to Paris and later became Modigliani’s art dealer and friend.

— MASP Curatorial Team, 2015

---

By Mason Klein
This text draws heavily from two texts written for the exhibition catalogue Modigliani, edited by Simonetta Fraquelli and Nancy Ireson, Tate Publishing, 2017. These are: Simonetta Fraquelli, ‘Modigliani & the Impact of the Midi, pp.149–155), and ’Kenneth Wayne, ‘Modigliani’s Inner Circle’, pp.173–178). The portraits that Amedeo Modigliani made of Léopold Zborowski between 1916 and 1919 appear to reflect the Polish art dealer, poet and writer’s transition from a slightly unkempt youth to a businessman with clear aspirations. While they reflect the evolution of the sitter’s identity, they also reflect the artist’s own development, as they indicate the maturation of his distinctive style. In the earliest portraits of Zborowski that Modigliani made – those dating between 1916 and 1918 – the artist captured the sitter as the college student that he was: he has a young face, wavy hair and his pose is informal. In one (CR 277), his collar is open and he is not wearing a tie. This perhaps reflects the fact that Zborowski was five years Modigliani’s junior. He had moved from Poland to Paris – probably in 1913 – to study modern art at the Sorbonne and the Ecole du Louvre, during which time he became an art critic (his reviews of Paris exhibitions were published in Krakow). Zborowski came from a well-off family and seems initially to have decided to become an art dealer in order to promote Modigliani. It is likely that the two had met by November 1916. Zborowski’s Polish friend Lunia Czechowska gave an eyewitness account detailing how Zborowski became Modigliani’s dealer. She recalled that: ‘He was willing to contract with Zborowski but was tied to [Paul] Guillaume. Zborowski said Guillaume was a friend of his and they could work it out, and in fact Guillaume, much occupied with many painters more established, shrugged and let Modigliani go. Then began the ‘regular afternoons’ when he came to paint.’ (Lunia Czechowska in William Fifield, Modigliani, New York 1976, pp.221–2, Wayne, p. 174). In theory, Modigliani took a considerable risk by leaving Paul Guillaume, who was fast developing a reputation as a respected dealer in African and Contemporary art. However, his move may have been hastened by the fact that Guillaume may not have signed Modigliani. He had been hesitant to commit to the artist in 1915 and had sought to obtain his works at low prices (see letter from Paul Guillaume to Guillaume Apollinaire, 10 September 1915, reproduced in ed. Peter Read, Guillaume Apollinaire / Paul Guillaume, Correspondence, Paris 2016, p.60). By deciding to work with Zborowski, Modigliani was entrusting his painting career to an untested poet, who until the late 1920s, did not even have a gallery in which to exhibit works. At this stage, Zborowski was what was known in the trade as a ‘marchand en chambre’ (a ‘bedroom dealer’, or one who worked from his own home without a gallery space). But apparently Guillaume viewed Zborowski in collegial terms, buying from and selling to him, and referring to him as a ‘fine gentleman’ (Paul Guillaume, ‘Lettre Ouverte à Monsieur Francis Carco’, Les Arts a Paris, no.XIII, Paris 1927, p.24, in Wayne, p.174). And Zborowski would soon add other artists to his stable, most of whom were fellow Eastern Europeans. The list included Chaïm Soutine (a Belorussian), Moïse Kisling (a Pole, like Zborowski), Pinchus Kremègne (a Lithuanian) and Jules Pascin (from Bulgaria). Because of this internationalism, one friend credited Zborowski as being the founder of the School of Paris (See Gabriel Fournier, Cors de Chasse [Souvenirs, 1912–1954], Geneva 1957, p.87, in Wayne, p. 175). Zborowski soon became not only Modigliani’s dealer, but also his friend and even a custodian to a certain extent. He initially gave him a modest daily stipend and paid for his supplies, while also allowing him to use his apartment to paint. This stipend eventually increased to 15 francs and Zborowski installed Modigliani in a studio of his own around the corner from his apartment at 3, rue Joseph Bara. It was there that – under Zborowski’s encouragement – Modigliani painted many of the nudes for which he is now best known. He no doubt hoped that they would prove profitable. The women who posed received 5 francs a sitting, another expense that was covered by the dealer (Lunia Czechowska, ‘Les souvenirs de Lunia Czechowska’, published in Ambrogio Ceroni, Amedeo Modigliani, peintre, suivi des souvenirs de Lunia Czechowska, Milan, 1958, pp.19– 34). In 1917, Zborowski arranged for these nudes – among other works – to be shown at the Galerie Berthe Weill in what became possibly the most important show of Modigliani’s career, and certainly his only solo exhibition during his lifetime. It caused a scandal: a nude displayed in the window attracted the attention of a police commissioner, who considered the depiction of body hair an offence against public decency. Weill was forced to censor the exhibition and it was a commercial failure (Berthe Weill, Pan! …. Dans l’oeil ou trente ans dans les coulisses de la peinture contemporaine, 1900-1930, Paris, 1933, pp.227–8). Nonetheless, Zborowski continued to promote Modigliani’s work, even taking his paintings abroad in order to promote sales. In 1919 he would even travel to London, to exhibit Modigliani’s art in an exhibition at Heal’s Mansard Gallery entitled ‘Modern French Art’, organised by the British arts critics and patrons Osbert and Sacheverell Sitwell with Zborowski’s help. The exhibition was a critical and financial success, and Modigliani was the star of the show. It was there that he met and sold The Little Peasant to the curator and collector Hugh Blaker (who later bequeathed it to Tate Robert Merrick, ‘Hugh Blaker: Doing his bit for the Moderns’, Journal of the History of Collections, vol.16, no.2, 2004, p.178). Even before then, he had shown his support for the artist, in his immediate concern for his physical wellbeing. On 23 March 1918, ‘Big Bertha’, the long-range, high-velocity German howitzer, began shelling the French capital, causing panic among the Parisian populace. This terrifying onslaught, coupled with Modigliani’s failing health and his excessive substance abuse, triggered a need for change. Concerned for his welfare and, more directly, his sales, Zborowski enlisted the help of a local physician, Dr Devaraigne, to persuade the artist that the only remedy was to leave Paris. In early April, Modigliani departed the epicentre of the art world – Montparnasse, with which he was deeply engaged – for the South of France. Modigliani was conscious of the impact this physical break would have on his painting and expressed his concern to Zborowski: ‘All these changes, changes of circumstance and the change of the season, make me fear a change of rhythm and atmosphere’. In actuality, the change of location encouraged Modigliani to experiment with new pictorial choices and even to differ his approach to his models. As there were no professional models on hand, for instance, he often used Zborowski’s money to hire prostitutes to pose. Although he and his friends there endured food shortages, financial hardship and illness – not to mention the uncertainty of the art market upon which they relied – their morale remained relatively high, at least until the very last months of the conflict. In May 1919, Modigliani returned to Paris. Portrait of Léopold Zborowski c. 1916–19 in the collection of Museu de Arte São Paulo Assis Chateaubriand probably dates from this time; in the picture the dealer is presented as of a person of standing. He is neatly dressed in a smart suit; his upright posture suggests respectability and self-possession. New technical research into Modigliani’s late portraits details that the black outline used to shape the figure was characteristic of Modigliani’s mature style, as was the elongated figure and slightly inclined head. The black outline was typically painted in a fine brush on top of the paint layer, to outline facial features or emphasise an existing contour. See Cynthia Schwarz, Frauke V. Josenhans, Isabelle Duvernois, Silvia A. Centeno, Ana Magalhães, Márcia Rizzutto, ‘Modigliani's Late Portraits’ in The Burlington Magazine, May 2018, No. 1382, Vol. 160, pp.400–407. * Zborowski was helped assiduously in his art-dealing activities by his companion Anna (Anna ‘Hanka’ Zborowska, 1885–1978), who was also Polish and four years older than her partner. She cared for their artists, was involved in negotiations, delivered pictures to clients and helped maintain the accounting books. Practical and efficient, she reportedly kept Zborowski, by all accounts a dreamer, grounded. Modigliani would have been as indebted to her as he was to Zborowski. Modigliani made 11 paintings of her (CR nos. 159, 160, 177–179, 228, 229, 311–314 ). Interestingly, though the two were not married, she took his name. This may be a further indication of their self-styling as middle-class professionals. In January 1920, just 35 years old, Modigliani succumbed to the tubercular meningitis that had plagued him since childhood. According to Anna, Zborowski’s enthusiasm for selling art dissipated once his protégé had died, and he continued trading art only because he needed to make a living. In general, though, he considered himself a ‘Man of Letters’, as described on his identity card. A close friend seconded that opinion, saying that Zborowski was at heart a poet, not a dealer. It is ironic and unfortunate, then, that despite being a writer, Zborowski left very few words of remembrance about Modigliani. He wrote about the artist in a letter: ‘He was a son of the stars for whom reality did not exist.’

— Mason Klein, 2017

---

By Nelson Aguilar
Modigliani’s characters have the Gothic, lanky behavior of a sunflower reaching up to celebrate heliotropism, as evinced in the other five portraits that integrate the Masp Collection – Madame G. van Muyden, Renée, Chakoska, Retrato de Leopold Zborowski, Lumia Czcchwska. The exception to the rule is Portrait of Diego Rivera, where the artist blew up format into two concentric elements to render the Mexican painter’s oversized figure. The artist adopted a Divisionist technique in which brush strokes are rhythmically applied so as to construct a stained-glass-like picture. The painting has the same unfinished aspect as Cézanne’s watercolors. In Modigliani, the void indicated by the ochre cardboard is instigated by the black and silver streaks and becomes a territory inhabited by gestuality. After years of interest in millennial paintings, he had become familiar with ceremonial rites. The School of Paris, unlike academic culture after the Renaissance rediscovered the richness of the pre-Columbian art forms associated with the sun-worshipping cults, which Rivera exalted on returning to his home country. More than a portrait, the work is an anticipation of the sitter’s destiny captured through Modigliani’s transcultural permeability, learned from Brancusi and which also influenced Tarsila do Amaral. In 1953, in response to a Masp inquiry, Rivera stated that the portrait had been painted at his studio in Montparnasse (Paris), where Modigliani was a frequent visitor.

— Nelson Aguilar, 1998

---