MONTHLY WORKSHOPS

Nu couché (also known in English as Red Nude[1] or Reclining Nude[2]) is a 1917 oil on canvas painting by the Italian artist Amedeo Modigliani.

Painting

The painting is one of a famous series of nudes that Modigliani painted in 1917 under the patronage of his Polish dealer Léopold Zborowski. It is believed to have been included in Modigliani's first and only art show in 1917, at the Galerie Berthe Weill, which was shut down by the police.[3] Christie's lot notes for their November 2015 sale of the painting observed that this group of nudes by Modigliani served to reaffirm and reinvigorate the nude as a subject of modernist art.[4][5][6]

Commentary

The Guardian art critic Jonathan Jones claims that Modigliani continues the tradition of Titian's Venus of Urbino "glorifying the human body infuses the sexuality of Modigliani's nude", reinvented a decade before by the paintings of Pablo Picasso and Henri Matisse. Jones states that "Modigliani is a religious artist and his religion is desire."[7]

DETAILS:

Date: Sunday 10th January 2027

Time: 11:00 to 3:00pm

Where: Duthy Street Art, 6 Duthy Street, Unley

Fee: $150

WHAT TO BRING:

Amedeo Modigliani (1884–1920) was an Italian-Jewish expressionist painter and sculptor of the École de Paris famous for his signature style of elongated human forms, graceful necks, mask-like faces, and blank almond-shaped eyes. [1, 2, 3, 4]

Key Characteristics & Influences

• Style: Characterized by surreal elongation, sparse rounded lines, and an absence of pupils in the eyes to capture the subject's inner soul rather than strict realism. [1, 2]

• Influences: Deeply inspired by Renaissance art, Paul Cézanne, Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, Cubism, and African, Egyptian, and Asian non-Western masks. [1, 2, 3]

• Subjects: Primarily focused on intimate portraits of contemporaries (such as Diego Rivera, Chaim Soutine, Max Jacob, and Jean Cocteau) as well as a well-known series of nudes. [1, 2, 3]

Notable Works

• Portraits: Portrait of Diego Rivera, Raymond (1915), Madame Zborowska (1918), Portrait of Lunia Czechowska, and multiple portraits of his partner Jeanne Hébuterne (such as Jeanne Hébuterne with Yellow Sweater). [1, 2, 3, 4, 5]

• Figurative & Nudes: Le grand nu (Reclining Nude), Nu couché, and his series of Caryatids. [1, 2, 3, 4]

• Explore Art: You can browse comprehensive archives and digital collections via WikiArt - Amedeo Modigliani or read deep-dive analyses on DailyArt Magazine. [1, 2]