Women came and went until Beatrice Hastings entered his life.
She stayed for almost two years, was the subject for several of his portraits,
including "Madame Pompadour" and the object of much of his drunken wrath.
Drunk, he was a bitter, angry
person, always looking for a fight as was depicted in the famous drawing by
Marie Vassilieff. Sober, he was graciously timid and charming, would quote Dante
Alighieri and recite poems from Lautreamont's book, Les Chants de Maldoror, a
copy of which he always carried with him.
When the English painter Nina Hamnett
arrived in Montparnasse in 1914, on her first evening there the smiling man at
the next table in the café introduced himself as "Modigliani, painter and Jew."
They became great friends.
In 1916, Modigliani befriended the Polish
poet and art dealer Leopold Zborovski and his wife Anna. Modigliani painted them
several times, charging only 10 Francs for a portrait.
The following summer, the Russian sculptor Chana
Orloff introduced him to a beautiful 18-year-old art student named Jeanne
Hébuterne who had posed for Foujita. Jeanne came from a conservative bourgeois
background and was renounced by her family, devout Roman Catholics, for her
liaison with the painter, who in their eyes was nothing but a debauched
derelict, and Jewish besides.
[1] [2] [3] [4] [5]
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