Modigliani Up Close

Barnes Foundation

October 16, 2022–January 29, 2023

This fall, in celebration of its centennial, the Barnes Foundation will present Modigliani Up Close, a major loan exhibition that shares new insights into Amedeo Modigliani’s working methods and materials. On view in the Roberts Gallery from October 16, 2022, through January 29, 2023, Modigliani Up Close is curated by an international team of art historians and conservators: Barbara Buckley, Senior Director of Conservation and Chief Conservator of Paintings at the Barnes; Simonetta Fraquelli, independent curator and Consulting Curator for the Barnes; Nancy Ireson, Deputy Director for Collections and Exhibitions & Gund Family Chief Curator at the Barnes; and Annette King, Paintings Conservator at Tate, London.

Amedeo Modigliani (1884–1920) is among the most celebrated artists of the 20th century. While many exhibitions have endeavored to reunite his paintings, sculptures, and drawings, Modigliani Up Close offers a unique opportunity to examine their production and explore how Modigliani constructed and composed his signature works. Featuring new scholarship that builds on research that began in 2017 with the major Modigliani retrospective at Tate Modern, this single-venue exhibition and its accompanying catalogue are the culmination of years of research by conservators and curators across Europe and the Americas. Modigliani Up Close furthers understanding of Modigliani’s approach to his art, refines a chronology of his paintings and sculptures, and helps to establish the locations and circumstances of where he worked.

“We are pleased to present this major exhibition that offers a detailed investigation of Modigliani’s unique style,” says Thom Collins, Neubauer Family Executive Director and President. “Stemming from a multiyear, global research effort, the show has brought the international art community together to create a collaborative vision of the artist’s practice, leaving a lasting legacy for future Modigliani scholarship. The Barnes collection is home to 16 works by the artist, one of the largest and most important groups of the artist’s works in the world, and the project provided a unique opportunity to fully explore their significance. We see once more how Dr. Barnes broke new ground in the history of collecting modern art.”

Featuring nearly 50 works from major collections, and organized into thematic sections, the exhibition presents paintings and sculptures alongside new findings that have resulted from the technical research of collaborating conservators, conservation scientists, and curators. Using analytical techniques, including X-radiography, infrared reflectography, and X-ray fluorescence spectroscopy (XRF), conservators and conservation scientists reveal previously unknown aspects of Modigliani’s work. Visitors will feel closer to Modigliani as an artist, seeing his work through the eyes of the experts, catching glimpses of the artist’s hand hidden beneath the surfaces of his work.

“Thanks to the work of conservators and curators from museums around the globe, Modigliani Up Close offers an unrivaled opportunity to understand how the artist made his iconic paintings and sculptures,” says Nancy Ireson. “The exhibition is a perfect demonstration of how, in addition to producing innovative research, the Barnes Foundation brings together colleagues in the field to share their findings and thoughts.”

This exhibition holds a special significance at the Barnes, as Dr. Albert C. Barnes was one of Modigliani’s earliest collectors in the United States and helped shape the artist’s critical reception in this country. In addition to works on paper, there are 12 significant paintings and one carved stone sculpture by Modigliani in the Barnes collection. With 12 paintings each, the Barnes and the National Gallery of Art in Washington, DC, have the largest collections of Modigliani paintings in the world.

To learn more about works in Modigliani Up Close, visitors can use Barnes Focus, a mobile guide that works on any smartphone with a web browser. Previously only accessible for works in the Barnes collection, Modigliani Up Close marks the first occasion Barnes Focus can be used to explore loaned works in an exhibition. To use it, visitors simply open the guide by navigating to barnesfoc.us on a mobile browser and focus on a work of art; the guide will recognize the work and deliver information about it. Barnes Focus also leverages the Google Translate API, so you can automatically translate the guide into a variety of languages.

CATALOGUE

The fully illustrated exhibition catalogue, Modigliani Up Close, is published by the Barnes Foundation in association with Yale University Press and edited by Barbara Buckley, Simonetta Fraquelli, Nancy Ireson, and Annette King. The catalogue, featuring 360 images, offers a focused exploration of how Modigliani constructed and composed his signature works and sheds light on Dr. Barnes’s role in the trajectory of Modigliani’s career. The Barnes collection is home to one of the most important groups of Modigliani works in the world and the catalogue brings these works together with some 50 other important examples from public and private collections around the world.

Organized into thematic groupings, the works are interpreted through the lens of new research carried out by renowned conservators, including Barbara Buckley and Annette King. In addition to scholarly contributions by the curatorial team, the book includes essays by Cindy Kang, Associate Curator at the Barnes, and art historian Alessandro De Stefani, and scholarly entries co-written by the project’s collaborating conservators, curators, and conservation scientists from participating institutions such as Allen Memorial Art Museum, Oberlin College, Ohio; Art Institute of Chicago; the Barnes Foundation; Collezione Fondazione Francesco Federico Cerruti per l’Arte; Dallas Museum of Art; Harvard Art Museums/Fogg Museum, Cambridge, Massachusetts; Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Washington, DC; Indianapolis Museum of Art at Newfields; The Israel Museum, Jerusalem; Kunstmuseum Bern; LaM – Lille Métropole Musée d’Art Moderne, d’Art Contemporain et d’Art Brut, Villeneuve d’Ascq, France; The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; Minneapolis Institute of Art; Musée de l’Orangerie, Paris; Musée des Beaux-Arts de Nancy; Musée des Beaux-Arts de Rouen; Musée National Picasso–Paris; Museu de Arte Contemporânea da Universidade de São Paulo; The Museum of Modern Art, New York; National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC; Philadelphia Museum of Art; Reuben and Edith Hecht Museum, University of Haifa, Israel; Saint Louis Art Museum; Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation.

Images

Amedeo Modigliani. The Pretty Housewife (La Jolie ménagère), 1915. The Barnes Foundation, BF327.

Amedeo Modigliani. Reclining Nude from the Back (Nu couché de dos), 1917, Oil on canvas. The Barnes Foundation, BF576.

Amedeo Modigliani. Nude with Coral Necklace, 1917.
Allen Memorial Art Museum, Oberlin College, Oberlin, Ohio. Gift of Joseph and Enid Bissett 1955.59

Amedeo Modigliani. Portrait of Manuel Humbert, 1916. Collection of Bruce and Robbi Toll

Amedeo Modigliani. Young Woman in a Yellow Dress (Renée Modot), 1918. Collezione Fondazione Francesco Federico Cerruti per l’Arte, on long-term loan to the Castello di Rivoli Museo d’Arte Contemporanea, Turin

Image Credit

Cerruti Foundation for Art, on long term loan to Castello di Rivoli Museum of Contemporary Art, Turin

Amedeo Modigliani. Jeanne Hébuterne with Yellow Sweater, 1918–19. Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York. Solomon R. Guggenheim Founding Collection, by gift, 37.533

Photo credit: The Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation / Art Resource, NY

Amedeo Modigliani. Nude with a Hat (recto), 1908. Reuben and Edith Hecht Museum, University of Haifa, Israel. Hecht Museum, Haifa

Photograph © Hecht Museum, University of Haifa, Photo: Shay Levy

Amedeo Modigliani, Portrait of Maud Abrantes (verso), 1908. Reuben and Edith Hecht Museum, University of Haifa

Photograph © Hecht Museum, University of Haifa, Photo: Shay Levy

Amedeo Modigliani, Jeanne Hébuterne, 1919. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, Gift of Mr. and Mrs. Nate B. Spingold, 1956 (56.184.2)

Image © The Metropolitan Museum of Art. Image source: Art Resource

Amedeo Modigliani. Jean- Baptiste Alexandre with a Crucifix, 1909. Musée des Beaux-Arts de Rouen. Gift of Blaise and Philippe Alexandre, 1988.11.1 / Image © C. Lancien, C. Loisel /Réunion des Musées Métropolitains Rouen Normandie

Amedeo Modigliani. Black Hair (Young Dark-Haired Girl), 1918. Musée National Picasso–Paris. Gift of Pablo
Picasso, 1978

© RMN-Grand Palais / Art Resource, NY Photo: Adrien Didierjean.

Amedeo Modigliani. Self Portrait, 1919. Museu de Arte Contemporanea da Universidade de São Paulo, Gift of Yolanda Penteado and Francisco Matarazzo Sobrinho
1963.2.16 / MAC USP Collection [Museu de Arte Contemporânea da USP Collection, São Paulo, Brazil

MAC USP Collection [Museu de Arte Contemporânea da USP Collection, São Paulo, Brazil]

Amedeo Modigliani. The Young Apprentice, 1918-19.
Musée de l'Orangerie, Paris, Jean Walter and Paul Guillaume Collection RF 1963-7

© RMN-Grand Palais / Art Resource, NY Photo: Hervé Lewandowski.

Amedeo Modigliani. Blue Eyes (Portrait of Madame Jeanne Hébuterne), 1917. Philadelphia Museum of Art. The Samuel S. White 3rd and Vera White Collection, 1967- 30- 59

Amedeo Modigliani. Portrait of Roger Dutilleul, 1919. Collection of Bruce and Robbi Toll

Details of hand and finger showing partly overpainted wedding band
Amedeo Modigliani. Portrait of the Red-Headed Woman (Portrait de la femme rousse), 1918. BF206

Image © The Barnes Foundation