Lunia Czechowska Portrait Bust By Modigliani

Woman with a Fan (Lunia Czechowska) 1919.  Modigliani painted ten portraits of this sitter, and did this one  a year before his death and three years after he'd met her. The Polish woman and her husband, Casimir, were old friends of Modigliani's patron dealer Leopold Zborowski. Despite the fact that Lunia was married in 1916 and "Modi" would shortly become involved with Jeanne Hébuterne, or that the two women became so friendly that one took care of the other's out-of-wedlock daughter, only his death caused the artist to cease attempting to seduce Lunia. 

Amedeo Clemente Modigliani (1884-1920) was an Italian Jewish painter and sculptor who worked mainly in France (educated in Florence and Venice), and established himself in the famous Montmartre area of Paris where his talent was immediately recognized by the East European avant-garde.  He is well known for his portraits and nudes characterized by the elongation of faces and figures.  He had to give up sculpting in 1915 due to ill health.  He had a short and eventful life, he was extremely driven and longed for recognition. But his life was also marked by alcoholism, metaphysical fears and progressive tuberculosis. At the age of 36, Modigliani died and left an art work that shows a sincere, obsessive search for truth and purity within art.