Modigliani: A Life - Tapa blanda

"'Illuminating' Sunday Telegraph 'Jeffrey Meyers's fascinating biography goes beyond the myth of the starving artist' Jewish Chronicle 'Fascinating... Meyers unravels the complex history of a tortured artist who lived and died in impoverished obscurity yet received worldwide posthumous acclaim' Daily Mail"

In 1920, at the age of thirty-five, Amedeo Modigliani died in poverty and neglect in Paris. An Italian Jew from a bourgeois family, he had a weakness for drink, hashish, and the many women who were drawn to his good looks and charismatic charm. His friends included Picasso, Utrillo and Soutine, among others, yet his work was never recognised in his own lifetime. Meyers recounts the story of Modi's life from his youth in Livorno, through his dissolute career in Paris, to his untimely death and posthumous glory.A contemporary of the Cubists, Modigliani turned instead to the art of Africa for inspiration in creating his distinctive style. His affairs with his mistresses were notoriously destructive, and his ill-starred relationship with his last lover, Jeanne HA'buterne, has become the stuff of bohemian legend. With a lively but judicious hand, biographer Jeffrey Meyers sketches Modigliani and his art, illuminating not only this little-known figure but also the painters, writers and lovers who shared early twentieth-century Paris with him.