Amedeo Modigliani
Lunia Czechowska was 25 when she sat for the present portrait. Her father was a Polish patriot who actively opposed the Russian and Austrian partition of the Polish homeland. Upon graduating from the gymnasium in 1913, Lunia followed her father’s wishes and moved to Paris. There she met Kazimierz Czechowski, another recent Polish émigré, also a patriot, with whom she fell in love; they married on 21 June 1915. Czechowski was a friend of Léopold Zborowski, the dealer of Modigliani. This is how they met. Modigliani painted many portraits of Lunia; now we don't know if they were friends because she was his muse or because he didn't have money to pay the models.
Amedeo Modigliani is known for his nudes and portraits. With its elongation of faces and figures, his characteristic, modern style is clearly recognizable. Like so many great artists, his work wasn’t very well received during his short lifetime (he died at age 35). The portrait of Lunia was painted in this characteristic style. The swan-like neck and tilted head recall the Mannerist practice of the 16th-century Italian masters Parmigianino and Pontormo. The modernist fascination with African tribal art is manifest in Lunia’s ovoid facial features. The eye slits in these African masks appear as blank eyes, the effect that we see in the picture.
While we know that she and the artist became friends and loved each other in a sense, we can only speculate on the extent to which they may actually have been lovers, in the most complete, physical sense of such a relationship as well. After Modigliani's death in 1920, Lunia published her memoirs, from which we know much about the artist's story.
P.S. Modigliani was a handsome man, attracting a lot of female attention. He had affairs and relationships with many woman, but it seems his biggest love was a fellow artist and a model Jeanne Hébuterne. Learn their tragic love story.
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