Portrait of Paul Alexandre
c. 1909
Medium
Black fabricated chalk on cream wove paper
Dimensions
19.9 × 27 cm (7 7/8 × 10 11/16 in.)
Classification
prints and drawing
Department
Prints and Drawings
Museum
Art Institute of Chicago
Accession Number
186313
Rights
Public Domain
About this artwork
After studying art in Italy, Modigliani moved to Paris, where he met the dermatologist Paul Alexandre. Alexandre would become Modigliani’s first patron, who eventually amassed a large collection of the artist’s work. Even though Alexandre found sitting for a portrait exhausting, he became the subject for several works. In this study for an oil painting, Modigliani captured the salient features of the doctor’s face: the sharp part in his hair and his piercing stare.
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...