Amedeo Modigliani

The Italian-born Amedeo Modigliani moved to Paris’s Left Bank in 1906 and began to paint the local bohemian personalities. An avid draftsman, he often sketched throughout the day, even using drawings to barter with neighborhood merchants. Modigliani’s only solo exhibition in 1917 shocked Parisian authorities; the series of female nudes on view are now among the artist’s most famous compositions and fetch record auction prices, an ironic fate given he died penniless at age 35 of tuberculosis.