Reclining Nude

In December 1917 Modigliani had the only solo show of his life, at a small Paris gallery run by the dealer Berthe Weill. To draw a crowd she hung one of his reclining nudes in the window. Within hours a police commissioner ordered it taken down as indecent, offended above all that the women were painted with body hair and looked frankly out at the viewer rather than glancing modestly away. A nude was still acceptable in 1917 as a goddess or an allegory, but not as a plain naked woman. The show was closed almost as soon as it opened. This is one of that group, painted the same year, its warm figure filling the canvas from edge to edge.