Jeanne Modigliani (born Giovanna Hébuterne, 29 November 1918 – 27 July 1984) was an Italian-French historian of Jewish art mostly known for her biographical research on her father, artist

Amedeo Modigliani Amedeo Clemente Modigliani (, ; 12 July 1884 – 24 January 1920) was an Italian painter and sculptor who worked mainly in France. He is known for portraits and nudes in a modern style characterized by a surreal elongation of faces, necks, and ...

. In 1958 she wrote the book ''Modigliani: Man and Myth'', later translated into English from the Italian by Esther Rowland Clifford.

Early life

Her father,

, was an Italian Jewish artist who worked mainly in France. Primarily a figurative artist, he became known for paintings and sculptures in a modern style characterised by mask-like faces and elongation of form. He died in 1920 of

tubercular meningitis Tuberculous meningitis, also known as TB meningitis or tubercular meningitis, is a specific type of bacterial meningitis caused by the ''Mycobacterium tuberculosis'' infection of the meninges—the system of membranes which envelop the central nerv ...

, exacerbated by poverty, overwork, and addiction to alcohol and narcotics. Her mother,

Jeanne Hébuterne Jeanne Hébuterne (; 6 April 1898 – 26 January 1920) was a French painter and art model best known as the frequent subject and common-law wife of the artist Amedeo Modigliani. She took her own life the day after Modigliani died, and is now bu ...

, was a French artist, best known as her father's frequent subject and common-law wife. When Modigliani died, on January 24, 1920, the twenty-one-year-old Hébuterne was eight months pregnant with their second child. A day after Modigliani's death, Hébuterne was taken to her parents' home. There, inconsolable, deeply depressed, eight months pregnant, and in despair, she threw herself out of a fifth-floor window, killing herself and her unborn second child. Her daughter, Jeanne, who was named after her, was only 14 months old. After her parents' deaths the fourteen-month-old orphan Jeanne was brought to Italy and raised by her paternal grandparents and by her paternal aunt, who adopted her, in the Modigliani hometown of Livorno, where she spent her childhood. She then graduated in art history in Florence.

World War II

Jeanne first married the Italian Jewish economist and journalist Mario Cesare Silvio Levi (born 1905). She later was identified and persecuted as a Jew by the fascists, fleeing to Paris. During

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

, she participated in the

French Resistance The French Resistance (french: La Résistance) was a collection of organisations that fought the German occupation of France during World War II, Nazi occupation of France and the Collaborationism, collaborationist Vichy France, Vichy régim ...

. During this time she met another Resistance fighter, Valdemar "Valdi" Nechtschein (his ''nom de guerre'' was Victor Leduc), who was also married. They began an affair, and in May 1946, Jeanne gave birth to their daughter, Anne. Eventually, both divorced their spouses and married one another. Their second daughter together, Laure, was born in 1951.

Later life

Jeanne and Valdemar Nechtschein divorced in 1980. Following a fall that caused a cerebral hemorrhage, Jeanne died in a Paris hospital in 1984.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Modigliani, Jeanne 1918 births 1984 deaths 20th-century biographers 20th-century French women writers French biographers French people of Italian-Jewish descent French Resistance members French women historians Women biographers