Modigliani: A Painter and His Art Dealer

Edited with the Musée de l’Orangerie in Paris, this catalog demonstrates how Modigliani’s partnership with his gallerist Paul Guillaume influenced his painting.

Amedeo Modigliani, a Jewish-Italian painter, arrived in Paris in 1906. His meeting with Constantin Brancusi in 1909 inspired Modigliani to sculpt—almost exclusively—until 1914, when he met art dealer Paul Guillaume. He returned to painting and produced countless portraits from 1914 until his death in 1920. Modigliani painted prominent contemporaries such as Jean Cocteau and Max Jacob, but also unknown models and the women in his life, including writer Béatrice Hastings and painter Jeanne Hébuterne, his partner and the mother of his child. Guillaume encouraged Modigliani, rented him an atelier in Montmartre, promoted his paintings in Parisian art and literary circles and abroad, and bought, sold, and collected more than a hundred of his paintings, fifty drawings, and a dozen sculptures. Guillaume’s writings offer intimate insight into Modigliani, highlighting their rapport and shared interests in African art, literature, and poetry. Modigliani in turn immortalized Guillaume in four portraits. This volume accompanies an exhibition at the Musée de l’Orangerie (September 20, 2023–January 15, 2024).