They called him simply Modi. The sound of this name echoes the French word maudit, meaning “cursed.”

Amedeo Modigliani

They called him simply Modi. The sound of this name echoes the French word maudit, meaning “cursed.”

And indeed, the life of Amedeo Modigliani was strikingly tragic. His once-wealthy family had already fallen into ruin before he was born. From an early age, he suffered from severe illnesses: pleurisy at 11, then typhoid fever, and later tuberculosis.

At the same time, his life was filled with:

• an incurable romanticism inherited from his mother
• the full spectrum of bohemian Montmartre — from spiritual séances to stealing stone blocks from construction sites for his sculptures
• friendships with Pablo Picasso, Lado Gudiashvili, Constantin Brâncuși, Diego Rivera
• numerous romances, including one with Anna Akhmatova

Amedeo was born and died alongside the cultural phenomenon we call the Belle Époque — the “Beautiful Era.”

In the lecture, we will speak both about the artist and the эпоха itself, because:

“Life is a gift from the few to the many.”
— Amedeo Modigliani