Nu assis

In December 1917 Modigliani had his first and only solo exhibition, at a small Paris gallery run by Berthe Weill. On opening day the police ordered the nudes taken out of the window, and the show was effectively shut down for indecency. He kept painting them anyway. This seated nude is from 1918, part of the run of about 30 nudes he made in those years, with the long simplified body and blank almond eyes he borrowed as much from carved masks and Italian Renaissance figures as from the model in front of him. By then his tuberculosis was worsening, and his dealer had sent him south to the French coast for his health. He would be dead within two years, at 35.