Amadeo Modigliani Polyptych Skateboard – Reclining Nude (1917-1918)

Amedeo Modigliani (1884-1920) was an Italian painter and sculptor of Jewish origin. His work and his style are immediately recognizable thanks to his extraordinary interpretations of the human face, retaining its individuality through the typical elongation of forms. His works were not well received during his lifetime, but were later accepted. Modigliani was born in the Tuscan city of Livorno and was educated in Florence and Venice. In 1906, he settled in the famous Montmartre district of Paris, where his talent was immediately recognized by the Eastern European avant-garde and came into contact with leading artists such as Pablo Picasso and Constantin Brâncusi. Modigliani had a short and eventful artistic life and was extremely driven and yearned for recognition. But his life was also marked by alcoholism, metaphysical fears and progressive tuberculosis. He drank excessively and took drugs and often lived in poverty. He died at the age of 35 in Paris of tuberculous meningitis and left the world a work that bears witness to a sincere and obsessive search for truth and purity in art.