Portrait of Monsieur Lepoutre

Modigliani painted Monsieur Lepoutre in 1916, in a Paris emptied by the war. Most of his friends had gone to the front. He had been turned down as unfit, his lungs already failing from the tuberculosis that would kill him four years later, and he was living hand to mouth in Montparnasse, trading portraits for meals and drinks. The sitter here gets the treatment Modigliani gave nearly everyone that year: the long oval head, the neck drawn out, the eyes left as flat almond shapes with no clear pupils. The muted browns and greys were as much about cheap materials as about mood.