Amedeo Modigliani was an Italian painter and sculptor active in Paris, known for his elongated portraits and nudes characterized by dreamlike simplicity and a strong human presence. After studying in Florence and Venice, he moved to Paris in 1906, where he developed a distinctive style inspired by Italian Renaissance art, African masks, Egyptian art, and Greek sculpture. Despite living in the midst of the avant-garde explosion, he refused to follow contemporary trends and instead sought a timeless beauty through clean lines, calm gazes, and sculptural forms.

Modigliani’s life was marked by illness, poverty, and self-destructive behavior, but also by an uncompromising dedication to his art. His only solo exhibition in Paris in 1917 was shut down by the police due to his nude paintings, and it was only after his death that he was recognized as one of the great artists of modernism. He died in 1920 at just 35 years old from tubercular meningitis. The day after his death, his partner Jeanne Hébuterne took her own life. Today, his works are considered among the most iconic and instantly recognizable of the 20th century.