The Rare Bird Review

Bird's worlds art tour continues today with The Cafe Singer (and her doo-wop chorus) by Amedeo Modigliani.

"Dedo" was born in Italy in 1894 and his parents were Faminio (close but no cigar) and Eugenia Modigliani. He left home and went to Florence, where in May 1902 he registered under Fattori at the Scuola Libera di Nudo (Free School of the Nude). In March 1903 he transferred himself to Venice, where he registered at a similar academy. Most important, he had his first real introduction to the pleasures of drugs and drink in Venice.

He moved on to Paris in 1906 where he rapidly made a reputation for his excesses (he had a habit of stripping stark naked when drunk), and his nickname changed from the childish Dedo to Modi (a pun on the French maudit, or 'accursed'). In 1909 he retired for a while to Livorno, sick and exhausted. This process repeated itself for six years...go to Paris, get drunk and addicted, go home to Italy, recover and do it all again.

The Cafe Singer was painted around 1913, just before the outbreak of World War I. He was attracted to the subject primarily because of her back-up singers and the fact that they were but one letter different than his father's name.

He died in Paris in 1920 from tubercular meningitis. Two days after his funeral his 9 month pregnant girlfriend threw herself out of a fifth floor window killing herself and the unborn little Modigliani.

Not exactly an uplifting story, but a classy painting none-the-less.