This November, London’s Tate Modern will play host to the most comprehensive retrospective of Italian artist Amedeo Modigliani’s work, it has been reported. The upcoming exhibition will feature an exciting virtual reality experience as well as bringing together ten of the artist’s nude works.
Many of Modigliani’s masterpieces altered the Renaissance tradition that had surrounded the artist in his earlier years. By pushing boundaries, he adopted a new approach to art, considered shocking at the time of creation.
Loans to Tate Modern for the exhibition include A Seated Nude of 1917, which is being delivered to the gallery all the way from the Royal Museum of Fine Arts in Antwerp. Only in this instance is the Belgian gallery breaking it own rules to loan the work of art, so that it can stand among its sister paintings.
The artist himself lived a quiet life before his early death in 1920 at the young age of 35. While he was alive, the artist sold very little and was only able to create work by his agent paying for materials and giving him a small stipend, claims the Guardian.
Yet despite this, since his death, Modigliani’s works have soared in value as his reputation and popularity grows. One of his stone head pieces sold for just below $60m (£47m) in 2010, making it the third most expensive piece of 20th century sculpture. Later in 2015, a Chinese buyer paid a staggering $170 million for a reclining nude at a New York auction, setting a new world record. Unfortunately, this work of art will not be leaving China for the Tate exhibition.
In 1917, one of Modigliani’s exhibition’s in Paris was closed after police deemed it to be of gross indecency and was only allowed to reopen once the offending nude had been removed from the gallery’s window.
According to curator Nancy Ireson, the exhibition will provide an insight into Modigliani’s life and work. She said: “What has changed is the attitude to his lifestyle. It is well documented that he dabbled in substance abuse but the shock has changed.”
The Tate Modern exhibit will also include numerous portraits of one of the artist’s close friends, Beatrice Hastings, who worked as a critic, poet and journalist.
As well as paintings, some of the loans that will feature at the retrospective exhibition include a series of his sculptures. Just like his paintings, many of the sculptures feature slender elongated necks, making them extremely fragile.
In addition to this, the exhibition will include an exciting virtual reality experience, which is being created by HTC Vive and is the first of its kind at Tate Modern. With their headsets, visitors will be able to enter the world of early 20th century Paris. The exhibition will take place from November 23rd until April 2nd 2018.