Despite her family, soon they were living
together and although Jeanne was the love of his life, their public scenes
became even more famous than Modigliani's personal drunken exhibitions.
On December 3, 1917, Modigliani's first
one-man exhibition was opened at the Berthe Weill Gallery. The chief of the
Paris police was scandalized by Modigliani's nudes and forced him to close the
exhibition within a few hours after its opening.
That same year, Modigliani received a letter
from a former lover Simone Thirioux, a French-Canadian girl, who informed him
that she had given birth to his son. He never acknowledged the child as his but
after moving to Nice with Hébuterne, the latter became pregnant and on Nov. 29,
1918 gave birth to a daughter whom they would also name Jeanne.
While in Nice, a trip organized by Leopold
Zborovski for Modigliani, Tsuguharu Foujita and other artists to try to sell
their works to rich tourists, Modigliani managed to sell a few pictures but only
for a few Francs each.
Despite this, while there he produced most
of the paintings that would ultimately become his most popular and valued works.
During his lifetime he sold a number of his works, but never for any great
amount of money. What funds he did receive, soon vanished for drugs including
alcohol.
In May of 1919 he returned to Paris, where, with Jeanne and their daughter, he
rented an apartment in the rue de la Grande Chaumière. While there, both Jeanne
and Modigliani painted portraits of each other and of themselves.
Although he continued to paint, by then
his lifestyle had taken its toll and Modigliani's health was deteriorating
rapidly, his alcoholic blackouts becoming more frequent. After not being heard
from for several days by his friends, his downstairs neighbor checked in on them
and found Modigliani delirious and in bed, holding onto Jeanne, who was nearly
nine months pregnant.
A doctor was summoned but there was
little that could be done because Modigliani was suffering from tubercular
meningitis. Modigliani died without regaining consciousness. There was an
enormous funeral, attended by all of the artistic community from Montmartre and
Montparnasse.
Jeanne Hébuterne, who had been taken to
her parents' home, threw herself out of a fifth-floor window two days after
Modigliani's death, killing herself and her unborn child. Modigliani was
interred in Père Lachaise Cemetery.
Jeanne Hébuterne was buried at the
Cimetière de Bagneux, near Paris and it was not until 1930 that her embittered
family allowed her to be moved to rest beside Modigliani. Their orphaned
15-month-old daughter Jeanne was adopted by Modigliani's sister in Florence.
As an adult, she would write an important biography of her father
titled: Modigliani: Man and Myth. Today, Modigliani is regarded as one of the
greatest artists of the 20th century, his works on display in the great museums
of the world.
His sculptures rarely
change hands and the few paintings that change hands can sell for more
than 15.6 million U.S. dollars. His "Nu couché" sold in November of 2003 for 26,887,500
U.S. dollars. (Agencies)
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