Amedeo Modigliani (Italian 1884-1920) is a classic case of the relatively unknown artist who becomes famous after his death. In fact, his posthumous legend is second only to that of Vincent Van Gogh. Though he had achieved some modest success in life, it was only after a massive memorial organized by an artist friend that his work began to receive serious attention.

Amedeo Modigliani was sick most of his life, and his vulnerability to illness was only increased after he discovered the relative pleasures of drugs and alcohol in Venice around 1898. After moving permanently to Paris, he became a prototypical bohemian artist. He had a reputation for excess, and loved to strip unclothed in public when drunk. He and his mistresses had several loud, extremely violent arguments in public. His devotion to living an "uncouth" life was thought by many, including Picasso, to be an affectation of sorts. He was most notably drunk in only the most fashionable places in Paris. Nonetheless, it ultimately wreaked great havoc on his health, and he died in bed of tubercular meningitis at the age of 36. Jeanne Hebuterne, his mistress and frequent subject of his paintings, committed suicide two days after his death. Nine months pregnant, she hurled herself out of a fifth story window, killing both herself and her unborn child.

Amedeo Modigliani's work is broken down into three phases. The first is marked by unclothed with some experimentation in African themes. The second, which centered around sculpture, was made financially possible only because Paris was undergoing a building boom and there was plenty of stone lying around for the pilfering. The third and final phase was motivated by World War I, which ended the boom and so his source of free stone. In any case, he was too ill to easily lug enormous stones back to his studio. And so he turned to portraiture, for which today he is most famous.

In his portraits, Amadeo Modigliani eliminated any attempt at three-dimensionality, and so achieved a supreme "flatness" in his work. This was highly desirable at the time, and can be seen any many artist's works, such as Picasso's. Modigliani focused on creating simple, elongated figures, and his paintings are considered to have an elegance and wit at odds with the way he lived his life.

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