Jacques and Berthe Lipchitz

About this artwork

After receiving artistic training in Italy, the sculptor and painter Amedeo Modigliani moved to the Parisian neighborhood of Montparnasse in 1906. It was there that he met the artist Jacques Lipchitz, who, wanting to help his financially troubled friend, commissioned Modigliani to paint this portrait on the occasion of his marriage to the Russian poet Berthe Kitrosser. According to Lipchitz, the picture took Modigliani only two days to paint, though Lipchitz persuaded him to work on it for anoth...

Art Historical Context

Amedeo Modigliani’s 1916 oil painting *Jacques and Berthe Lipchitz* captures the sculptor Jacques Lipchitz and his wife in a moment of quiet intimacy. Created during World War I in Paris, the work reflects the close-knit artistic community that sustained many émigré creators at the time. Modigliani, working in the heart of the modern art scene, often painted friends and fellow artists, turning private relationships into enduring portraits. The painting exemplifies Modigliani’s distinctive modernist approach, with its simplified forms and elegant lines that emphasize the sitters’ personalities rather than elaborate backgrounds. Executed in oil on canvas, the medium allowed him to build subtle layers of color and achieve the smooth, almost sculptural surfaces that echo his early training as a sculptor. The modest dimensions—roughly 32 by 21 inches—invite viewers to engage with the figures on a personal scale, as if encountering the couple in their studio. Today housed in the Art Institute of Chicago’s Modern Art collection, the portrait stands as a testament to Modigliani’s ability to blend tenderness with formal innovation, preserving the spirit of early twentieth-century artistic life for contemporary audiences.

About the Artist

Amedeo Modigliani · 1884–1920

Amedeo Modigliani (1884–1920) was an Italian painter and sculptor whose elegant, elongated figures and portraits rank among the most instantly recognizable images in modern art. Born in Livorno, Tuscany, to a Sephardic Jewish family, he studied at the academies of Florence and Venice before moving permanently to Paris in 1906, where he immersed himself in the bohemian artistic milieu of Montmartre...