Head

Amedeo Modigliani

1911–12

Limestone

Minneapolis Institute of Art

A carved limestone bust of a stylized head rests on a square base. The sculpture features elongated facial features and a textured headdress. A protaganist of the vibrant artistic community in Paris around 1910, the Italian Amedeo Modigliani sought to establish a new sculptural language, inspired significantly by African and ancient Greek and Egyptian examples. The present <I>Head</I> was one of seven that were exhibited at the <I>Salon d'Automne</I> in Paris in October 1912. A few months earlier, it was photographed in the artist's studio - which makes it one of his best-documented works. Modigliani intended for the heads to be parts of 'columns of tenderness' within a primordial 'temple of beauty' that remained unrealized. According to the account of his close friend Ja