Ponti

World – More than a century after the encounter between Amedeo Modigliani and Paul Guillaume, Paris is dedicating one of the most anticipated events of 2023 to the master and visionary art dealer.
An exhibition at Musée de l’Orangerieexpected from 20 September 2023 to 15 January 2024, puts the spotlight on one of the most emblematic moments in the life of the Livorno painter of long necks, precisely when Paul Guillaume becomes his dealer, in the mid-1910s, highlighting how the links between the two characters can help us shed light on the artist’s career.
Upon his arrival in Paris in 1906, Modigliani was still a painter. Settling in the Bateau-Lavoir, a commune for penniless artists in Montmartre, he is initially influenced by the work of Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, developing an unmistakable style characterized by rapid brushstrokes. He is said to have completed a portrait in a sitting or two, yet all who had posed for him claimed that being painted by Modigliani was like “having your soul stripped”.
The meeting with the sculptor Brancusi, in 1909, an authentic revelation, introduced him to sculpture to which he devoted himself almost exclusively until 1913. His break with the practice of sculpture was as sudden as it was total: from 1914 to his death, which took place in 1920, he made several hundred paintings and a large series of drawings, dedicated to the human figure.
Precisely the practice of painting will be at the center of the relationship between the artist and his dealer who, precisely in 1914, had opened a first gallery near the Elysée Palace, where Larionov and Gontcharova, Derain, Van Dongen or even Matisse were exhibited and Picasso, but also some Modigliani and De Chirico.

Amedeo Modigliani, Portrait of Paul Guillaume, 1910, Oil on canvas, 54 x 81 cm, Milan, Museo del Novecento

However, the notoriety of the merchant who had brought together one of the most extraordinary collections of European paintings from the 1930s, which he intended to donate to the state to found ”the first French museum of modern art”, was consecrated by his friendship with Albert Barnes , a very wealthy American doctor from the East Coast.
Guillaume therefore encouraged Modigliani, rented him a studio in Montmartre, made his paintings known in Parisian artistic and literary circles. He buys, sells and collects his works, assuring the artist a new material condition as well as growing fame abroad.
The meeting between the collector and the artist took place in 1914 thanks to the poet Max Jacob. Guillaume probably became his merchant the following year, as evidenced by the correspondence between the same merchant and his mentor, the poet and art critic Guillaume Apollinaire. For his part, in this Parisian context, the painter immortalizes his gallery owner in a series of portraits and drawings that have remained famous.
Between 1915 and 1916 Modigliani made four portraits of his patron. The first, kept in the Musée de l’Orangerie, proclaims the privileged relationship between the dealer and the artist. Paul Guillaume, aged twenty-three at the time, is represented in a jacket, gloves and tie, similar to a visionary avant-garde pilot, with the inscription “Novo Pilota”, which suggests that the gallery owner aroused great hopes in the painter.
Paul Guillaume also leaves a series of portraits of his painter friend, entrusted to stories rather than to the brush, from which emerges a more intimate Modigliani, with whom he shares artistic and literary affinities, as well as a common interest in African art , literature and poetry. And Paul Guillaume always recalls how much Modigliani loved and judged poetry “not in the cold and incomplete way of an associate professor, but with a soul mysteriously gifted for sensitive and adventurous things”.

The Orangerie Museum, Paris | Photo: © Guilhem Vellut from Paris via Wikimedia Commons

In addition to the five paintings by Modì, which today enrich the collection of the Musée de l’Orangerie, the dealer is said to have purchased over one hundred canvases, about fifty drawings and about ten sculptures by the artist. A number which shows the gallerist’s commitment to promoting the master, but also the passion for his works, widely present on the walls of his various apartments. There is no shortage of portraits of leading figures in Paris at the time, such as Max Jacob, André Rouveyre, Jean Cocteau, Moïse Kisling, and then unknown models, portraits of women such as that of Béatrice Hastings and Jeanne Hébuterne, who shared the life of painter.

Through a selection of emblematic works, the Parisian exhibition, curated by Cécile Girardeau and Simonetta Fraquelli, will evoke the different characteristics of this extraordinary corpus, exploring the links between the painter and his dealer, in the light of the Parisian artistic and literary context of the 1910s .
The exhibition will be open every day – with the exception of Tuesday 1st May and the morning of 14th July – from 9 to 18.

An exceptional account of the history of art that travels along the common thread of colors crosses the great unsolved mysteries at the center of the most incredible and fascinating international art thefts of our century.
The mysterious charm of the Mona Lisa conquers the small screen, while an unpublished Raphael at the Scuderie del Quirinale leads us to the discovery of one of the most fascinating exhibitions ever.
This and much more in the week on TV that has just begun.

On Rai 5 Achille Castiglioni inaugurates the new season of Art Night
The new season of Art Night starts again from December 14th. The program dedicated to art by Silvia De Felice and Emanuela Avallone, Massimo Favia, Alessandro Rossi, directed by Andrea Montemaggiori returns with many new features, starting with the broadcast day which will be Wednesday, and no longer Friday. Starting from Wednesday 14 December at 21.15 an exceptional story of the history of art along the common thread of colors will lead the public face to face with Achille Castiglioni. In this itinerary into beauty, which is also a journey into the soul, we will learn more about the architect and designer, twenty years after his death, thanks to the documentary by Valeria Parisi produced by 3D productions, entitled Achille Castiglioni. All with nothing. Irony, curiosity, self-criticism, combined with a profound interest in others, are some of the characteristics that make the Milanese architect one of the great names in Italian design, a designer of 20th-century icons. His lamp Bow of 1962 represents, to date, the most famous and copied piece of furniture in the world.

Achille Castiglioni. All with nothing | Courtesy Rai 5

With generosity and humour, surrounded by his objects, as well as by a surprising amount of games collected throughout his life, Castiglioni talks about himself by sharing his extraordinary desire to critically observe reality and to find new solutions, amazed and amazed at the same time. Viewers will see him on the small screen as he explains, with amused eyes, the reason that prompted him to collect empty cans, bottles with ball caps, tongs, plastic glasses for children.
The documentary then leads us to follow one of the many guided tours of the Foundation following his daughter Giovanna who illustrates her father’s ever-present work. Also speaking to the public about Achille Castiglioni will be the architect Patricia Urquiola, his student at the Milan Polytechnic, engaged in the preparation of the celebratory exhibition at the Triennale. It will be precisely the images of this exhibition that will tell us about a designer who, far from creating schools, has ferried us to the new millennium.

Sky Arte’s agenda is under the sign of mystery
Naples, 2007. An interception, during the investigation of a case of international drug trafficking, puts the prosecutor Vincenza Marra on the trail of two Van Gogh paintings stolen in 2002 in Amsterdam. While Octave Durham and Henk Bijslein recall this incredible theft, at the hands of notorious thieves duo Okkie Durham and Henk Bejslein, a complex investigation by the Dutch police, together with their Italian colleagues, will lead to the recovery of the paintings in 2016.
Van Gogh: Amsterdam, 2002 is the first of six episodes of Art Crimesthe Sky Original docu-series conceived and written by Stefano Strocchi, who also directed four of the six episodes, produced by DocLab, Unknown Media, Sky and RBB/Arte, exclusively on Sky Arte from Tuesday December 13th at 21.15 and streaming only on NOW, also available on demand.

Art Crimes, Episode 2, Frans Hals: Gotha, 1979 | Courtesy Sky

In this thrilling journey from Berlin to Amsterdam, from Budapest to Athens, the series will reveal the mysteries hidden behind the history of the most famous art thefts thanks to the memories of their protagonists: the thieves and detectives. Borrowing from the painstaking dramaturgy of the investigative thriller, with the contribution of the protagonist criminals, prosecutors, lawyers and the art dealers themselves, each film reconstructs the disappearance, the investigation and the discovery of some of the most important masterpieces in the world , through interviews, official archives and trial records. From the Baroque church of San Lorenzo, in Palermo, to hidden monasteries in Greece, Art Crimes takes us inside six incredible stories, including twists, unpredictable endings and breathtaking views.

Leonardo da Vinci, Gioconda, 1503, 53 x 77 cm, Paris, Louvre Museum

But to open the week signed Sky in the sign of yellow will be, Monday 12 December, at 21.15, in the first vision, The mysteries of the Mona Lisa. 500 years after its creation by Leonardo da Vinci, one of the most famous works in the world finally reveals its secrets thanks to new technologies and old documents found.
Thursday 15 December at 12.50 the documentary Raphael at the Scuderie del Quirinale finally it will reveal the largest exhibition ever dedicated to the master of Urbino closed too early due to Covid. Entitled Raphael 1520-1483, the exhibition closed its doors just four days after its opening due to the lockdown connected to the health emergency. The documentary directed by the award-winning English director Phil Grabsky, the new pioneer of the documentary genre dedicated to art, will accompany the public from home face to face with the over two hundred masterpieces featured in the Capitoline exhibition, including paintings and drawings, over half of which brought together for the first time in an exhibition.

Raphael, Female portrait, 16th century National Gallery of the Marches

Chewbecca

Midjourney è un laboratorio di ricerca indipendente che produce un programma di intelligenza artificiale proprietario. Utilizza descrizioni testuali per generare immagini mozzafiato in pochi secondi. L’intelligenza artificiale combinata con l’arte potrebbe sembrare controversa per alcuni artisti, eppure un’enorme porzione di Internet è entusiasta di testare le acque di questa tecnologia mentre crea “opere d’arte” come mai prima d’ora.

Ti sei mai chiesto come sarebbero i personaggi dei film famosi come hipster? Forse da bambini? Anche come Samurai? Abbiamo ottime notizie!

In r/midjourney su Reddit, gli utenti hanno condiviso il lavoro della loro immaginazione combinato con personaggi famosi dei film, come: Harry Potter, Avengers e Star Wars, per ottenere questi risultati.

Di più: A metà viaggio, Reddit h/t: boredpanda

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