Female Nude (Iris Tree) - Amedeo Modigliani Oil Painting for Sale

Log in | Sign up

contemporary art

English

Female Nude (Iris Tree): Amedeo Modigliani

Price:
Art Type: Oil Painting
Size:
English Comments: 0
International Comments: 0
Creating Date:
Introduction and Works of Amedeo Modigliani >>

Contemporary-Art.org

Amedeo Modigliani Oil Painting - Female Nude (Iris Tree)

Keywords: Female, Nude, Iris, Tree

Work Overview: Female Nude (Iris Tree)
Amedeo Modigliani
1916 (circa)
The Samuel Courtauld Trust, The Courtauld Gallery, London

Modigliani’s Female Nude is a radical reworking of the conventions of figurative painting and sculpture in western European art. The sensuous pose of the sleeping model, her head tilted to one side, is typical of the vast number of classicising nudes that were shown annually at the Salon in Paris. However, the woman’s elongated face and boldly simplified features derive in generalised terms from the traditions of non-western art and testify to Modigliani’s knowledge of Egyptian, African and Oceanic sculpture. Moreover, his rough handling of paint ran counter to the highly-finished, smoothed surfaces found in most Salon nudes at this time. Here he applies the paint with a short stabbing action, manipulating it whilst still wet so that the marks of his stiff brush are clearly visible, as are the deeply scratched lines made with the end of his brush to accentuate the model’s hair.

Modigliani’s combination of conventional and avant-garde elements effectively fused the classical aesthetics of western art with the art of other cultures: a conjunction that contemporaries considered an affront to the grand tradition of European painting. However, is was Modigliani’s explicit depiction of pubic hair in his nudes – a taboo in Salon paintings – that proved most controversial and led to the police closing his exhibition at Berthe Weill’s gallery in 1917 on grounds of indecency.

-----------------
Iris Tree (27 January 1897 – 13 April 1968) was an English poet, actress and artists' model,[1] described as a bohemian, an eccentric, a wit and an adventurer.

Tree's parents were actors Sir Herbert Beerbohm Tree and Helen Maud Tree, and her sisters were actresses Felicity and Viola Tree. An aunt was author Constance Beerbohm, and her uncles were explorer and author Julius Beerbohm and caricaturist and parodist Max Beerbohm.[2]

Iris Tree was sought after, as a young woman, as an artists' model, being painted by Augustus John, simultaneously by Duncan Grant, Vanessa Bell and Roger Fry, and sculpted by Jacob Epstein, showing her bobbed hair (she was said to have cut off the rest and left it on a train) that, along with other behaviour, caused much scandal.[3][4] The Epstein sculpture is currently displayed at the Tate Britain.[2] She was photographed countless times by Man Ray, and ran with Nancy Cunard for a time, in a set at the Eiffel Tower Restaurant of Rudolph Stulik, and acted alongside Diana Cooper in the mid-1920s.

She had studied at the Slade School of Art. She contributed verse to the 1917 Sitwell anthology Wheels; her published collections were Poems (1920) and The Traveller and other Poems (1927).

She married twice. Her first marriage was to Curtis Moffat, a New York artist; Ivan Moffat, the screenwriter, was their son. Her second marriage was to the actor and ex-officer of the Austrian cavalry, Count Friedrich von Ledebur. They both appeared (after their divorce) in the 1956 film version of Moby Dick. She also appeared as a poet, essentially as herself, in Federico Fellini's La Dolce Vita (1960).

-------------------
Regular visitors to The Courtauld Gallery may have noticed that Modigliani’s Female Nude is back on the gallery walls after its loan to The Pushkin State Museum of Fine Arts in Russia for an exhibition, so it seems like a good opportunity to look into this painting further for this edition of ‘Spotlight on a Masterpiece’

Although the pose itself was quite typical of what was being shown in the Salon in Paris at that time, the taboo of Modigliani’s explicit depiction of pubic hair in his nudes led to the police closing his first and only solo exhibition during his lifetime, at Berthe Weill’s gallery in 1917, on grounds of indecency.

Many of Amedeo Modigliani’s contemporaries found his combination of avante-garde and conventional methods an affront to the grand tradition of European painting.

The woman’s simplified features and elongated face derive from Modigliani’s knowledge of non-western art such as African, Oceanic and Egyptian sculpture.

His handling of paint was much rougher than the smooth, highly finished surfaces of most Salon nudes at that time.

In this painting, the paint is applied in short stabbing strokes, wet-in-wet, so that the brush and scratch marks are clearly visible particularly in the way that the model’s flowing hair is accentuated.

Copyright Statement:
All the reproduction of any forms about this work unauthorized by Singing Palette including images, texts and so on will be deemed to be violating the Copyright Laws.
To cite this webpage, please link back here.

>> English Comments >> Chinese Comments >> French Comments >> German Comments >>Report