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Italian
painter and sculptor, who was concerned with
graceful, simplified, and sympathetic portrayal
of the human figure. Modigliani was born in
Livorno and raised in a Jewish ghetto, where
he suffered serious illnesses as a boy. He studied
art in Florence and in 1906 moved to Paris,
where he became acquainted with Pablo Picasso,
Jean Cocteau, and other avant-garde artists
living there.
In the winter of 1906 he moved to Paris. During
his early years in Paris, Modigliani turned
to sculpture, carving totem-like figures in
stone that owed a debt to his mentor Constantin
Brancusi as well as to African masks and Greek
Archaic figures.
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