Amedeo Modigliani

Schmalenbach, a prominent German art historian and museum curator, has written books on a number of major 20th-century painters. His studies of Chagall, Lager, and Klee are scholarly and authoritative. So, too, is this new work on Modigliani, an important but not fully understood modern artist. Schmalenbach's strongest purpose is to disentangle Modigliani from his reputation as hedonist. As one of the young bohemians, Modigliani did not receive acclaim for his art until well after his death in 1920. The author organizes his text and intellectual points very precisely, providing a chronological tour of the artist's development. Aided by excellent plates, he offers a tight, thoughtful examination that will surely provoke scholarly reaction and deduction from students and art historians. This work is a fine complement to the fact-gathering in Alfred Werner's Modigliani (Abrams, 1986). Recommended for specialized art collections in academic and museum libraries.