Recently, We needed to get a house warming present for some friends but we were completely out of      ideas. On a similar occasion they had given me with a quaich, a Scottish symbol of everlasting friendship, so i felt I had to get something more than just a greeting card.

Our friends are an unique couple you just can’t pigeonhole.  They’re certainly  clever, humorous and true individuals and since they were moving in into a new home, I felt a showy item could be ideal, but what to choose? My own, personal style runs to items from the ancient world, such as {Roman art} and Greek sculpture. I spent ages looking for something remarkable, a present with a story behind it, but Aphrodite didn’t seem appropriate, an Alexander bust was something I knew our friends already had and Hippocrates would have been perfect for a physician, but not for an IT professional and a lawyer. What I wanted was something the same and also, like my friends, totally unique.

My eventual decision was a Modigliani sculpture, an elongated female head sculpture really different from the traditional statues I’d considered but somehow precisely the same. Traditional yet primitive at the same time Modigliani art work is plainly inspired by African Masks and Polynesian sculpture, clean and rounded whilst long and angular, it’s the contradiction which makes the statues so memorable.

Modigliani’s tale is a heartbreaking one. Born in 1884, his genius for painting was clear from his childhood, however his life was destroyed by tuberculosis.  His mother guaranteed he had the best training, and he had been very well respected by his art teacher, though he created his own personal style that has much more in keeping with the angular Art Deco movement yet to come compared to curvaceous Art Nouveau still fashionable. Primarily, it is even now a style of it’s own, quite individual.

Like many now famous artists Modigliani was basically undiscovered in his own lifetime. He created a tremendous amount of work, oftentimes up to one hundred paintings per day, but in many cases he gave these to close friends or girlfriends that didn’t keep them. It seems as if he understood his life would be short, and probably because of that, he latched onto drugs and alcohol, to the stage where many explained his distinctive style was credited entirely to hashish, however this was clearly untrue.   He was a follower of Nietzsche and Baudelaire and came to the realization genuine innovation required dysfunction and defiance. At one point in his career he destroyed a lot of his earlier art declaring them far inferior.

As time passed his well being became even worse. He was refused for army service in the First World War and continued to live in Paris, not knowing when the upcoming payment of his allowance might arrive. He was attractive and charming and women enjoyed him, but even though he managed to showcase a few paintings in the course of his life, he never made any money from these.

Modigliani passed away quite penniless, from meningitis, his linens stained with oil from a sardine can, the only thing he had still left to eat.  As always, there had been a female involved. Much younger than Modigliani and on the day he perished almost nine months pregnant with their 2nd child. Right after his death her family members took her home and she went backwards out of a window, killing herself and the unborn child.

The stories regarding Modigliani’s lifetime are filled with contradiction. Some have tried to imply that the woman, Jeanne Hebuterne was merely another passing fancy for the artist, however their daughter’s investigation confirmed the woman was a painter off considerable skill. The woman’s figurines were shown for the first time in an exhibition in 2000.

As for the Modigliani art we settled on, the statue itself is elongated and abstract depiction of a woman’s head that is both soft yet striking. Unfortunately we cannot fully understand who she’s intended to be; there is no legend unless we make one.  Virtually no distinct style of interior decoration is needed. The Modigliani bust would look great anywhere you want it.

Personally, part of the attraction of the product as a gift is the likeness between the artist and my friends. Equally funny, clever and appealing, a rebel and an individual. There the similarities between them end.