Little Girl in Blue

In 1918 Modigliani's dealer sent him south from Paris to the coast near Nice, partly to escape the war and partly for his failing health, and the change shows in his subjects. Instead of the reclining nudes that had scandalised Paris, he painted the children of local working families, seated and a little self-conscious. This girl stands in a plain blue dress against an almost bare wall, her face pared down to the long oval and tilted eyes that are his signature. He had less than two years to live. His companion Jeanne Hebuterne was expecting their child while he worked through that southern winter.