Retrato de Paul Guillaume

By 1915 much of Paris had emptied into the trenches, but the art trade went quietly on, and Modigliani had just found the man who would sell his work. Paul Guillaume was only 24, sharp and ambitious, and he had started handling the painter the year before. Modigliani made several portraits of him. In this one he scratched words straight into the paint. Beside the sitter's name he wrote Novo Pilota, new pilot, and up in a corner Stella Maris, star of the sea. Guillaume sits in a dark suit and hat against a warm red ground, gloved and self-assured, the picture of a young man certain he is steering something new. The portrait now hangs in the Orangerie, in the collection Guillaume himself began.