Standing Nude

Art Historical Context

Amedeo Modigliani’s *Standing Nude*, created around 1910, offers a rare early glimpse into the Italian artist’s evolving approach to the human figure. Executed in graphite on paper, the drawing belongs to the Robert Lehman Collection at The Metropolitan Museum of Art. Modigliani, who had recently settled in Paris, was beginning to distill the lessons of African sculpture and contemporary modernism into his signature style of graceful, elongated forms. Though Modigliani is best known for his painted female nudes, this male figure reveals his interest in the expressive potential of line. With economical yet fluid strokes, he captures both anatomical structure and a quiet sense of presence, demonstrating how drawing served as an essential means of exploration throughout his brief career. Acquired by the museum in 1975, the sheet underscores Modigliani’s lifelong fascination with the nude as a vehicle for emotional and formal harmony, inviting viewers to appreciate the quiet power of his draftsmanship.

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...