Simonetta Fraquelli & Annette King: Modigliani's enduring appeal and spotting his fakes!

Hi Simonetta and Annette, can you start by telling us why now is the right time for a Modigliani exhibition at the Barnes Foundation?

Annette and I both contributed and worked on an exhibition that was held at the Tate in 2017, a major Modigliani retrospective. And when we were working on that together with our colleague Nancy Ireson, we started looking at the technical conservation aspects of all the paintings, and we convinced the lenders to that exhibition to also look at their works. And from there came a series of articles that were published in the Burlington and further studies. And when the opportunity came at the Barnes to do a show, we felt that given that they had such a great collection of Modiglianis which had hitherto not been studied and which could benefit from being in a way catalogued and looked at carefully, also from a conservator’s point of view, we thought this was kind of a unique opportunity to build on what we had already done with the previous show and the previous research and to bring together a new group of paintings and to kind of further this work on the artist, which does open new kinds of avenues of research and understanding and really to be able to move forward with the artist in a way that had hitherto not be done, at least prior to the Tate show.

So, what is it about Modigliani’s work that gives him such enduring appeal?

He's an amazing colourist, so the colours really appeal and he seems to capture the essence of the subject without being too realistic or too representational but also there's a real elegance of form and because he was a classically trained artist, the more we looked at these paintings, the more we realised that he was bringing that to the paintings so they have a very pleasing harmony which may not first be evident. So, I think there's a lot about his paintings that really do appeal. And the sculptures. 

If I can also add to that in terms of his appeal, I mean, he's an artist who since the early 1920s and shortly after his death became a favourite both with collectors and with the public. And that has endured, as Annette says, all the way through. He was always a little bit outside of any specific group. I mean, he wasn't connected with the Futurists or the Surrealists or the Cubists, and he forged his own path, which I think has been one that the general viewer has been able to connect with in a way that perhaps other artists have not been so accessible. His art is in many ways, even though I think it seems very on the surface, simple and direct, is actually, as our conservation studies have shown, much more sophisticated and much more worked out than maybe one would immediately think.

As curators, how did you strike a balance between the formal assessment of his artworks and the technical scientific viewpoints, which have such a strong focus in the show?

So, as we mentioned, the Tate exhibition was the beginning of this project and close looking has always been an important part of the conservator’s role, but also an art historian's role. And as we discussed the paintings, we were looking at very different aspects of the paintings, but bringing them together gave us a much more rounded view of each work and then connecting with all the other conservators and curators from the lending institutions we realised that we could then extend the story of each painting into a much more rounded view of his development, his career. And it just made sense for us all to share our findings and look for patterns of material use techniques that emerged throughout his career, creating a bigger picture of how he was working and how his working methods changed, and for example, you bring up the canvas project. It was called the Thread Count Automation Project run by Don Johnson in Texas. He developed software that could sort of look at digital X-rays and match canvas weave anomalies, placing paintings on the same role of canvas, which is fascinating in itself, but it gave us an insight into the materials he was using. So, we realised there were practically no matches before 1917 and then after Zborowski began supporting him, there was much more consistency. So, it seems that the supplies are coming through to the Zborowski, he's buying them and supplying Modigliani. Also, he favoured certain formats, the marine format. It also gave us an insight into colour makers and how they were producing these canvases. So, producing different sizes and formats on each role to get the maximum number of canvases from each role and there are lots of intricacies within those findings that we were still trying to work out, but it was a fascinating insight into his use of canvases and where they were coming from. And in terms of the balance, it was quite difficult, and it took a lot of discussion between us. So, I'll hand over Sim now.

I think that both Nancy and I were very keen that we wanted to work with Annette and with Barbara and have them, as conservators, be part of the curatorial team. But we were also very concerned – not concerned – it’s not the right word. conscious of the fact that when you present an exhibition, you have to do it in such a way to engage the viewer. And I think I could speak for Nancy as well. We wanted the conservation material to be accessible and to be present in the presentation, but we also wanted the show to work visually as an exhibition. And we wanted to draw out certain kinds of visual connections between the individual, for example, between the sculptures and the paintings, or between the group of nudes in a way that allowed the conservation material to be present, but at the same time didn't detract from the paintings themselves. Because one of the problems sometimes with exhibitions where they do have a lot of conservation material is that you find that the viewers end up looking just at the conservation material, not at the paintings themselves. So, I think we were very conscious, all four of us, of creating kind of a visual balance within the exhibition that still allowed you to appreciate the works, but then had this other layer of conservation information available to you. Of course, the catalogue has much more than the exhibition does, and perhaps one could find in other exhibitions or other projects ways of including more technical information through digital ways or whatever into the exhibition itself, but very keen that the paintings and the sculptures would stand in their own right as well.

And my penultimate question, why have there been so many forgeries of his work?

I think that when you have an artist who has a market, inevitably there are forgeries. And his market has been very strong since almost after the day he died. And he wasn't super prolific. He painted a number of paintings, but nowhere near like Picasso’s output. But, where there's a great market, I think there are always forgeries, and unfortunately, his market has always been very strong, and consequently, there have been many forgeries over the decades.

And finally, why are the eyes in Modigliani's paintings so mysterious?

This is a question that practically every single person that comes to the Modigliani exhibition asks. So, obviously it does strike a chord. I mean, personally, I think it has to do with his looking at perhaps African masks or sculptures, he does write about looking into the inside person through the eye and sometimes you have an eye that’s open and another one that’s crosshatched. Sometimes you have very ordinary eyes. So, I think there’s a great variety. But I think that the relationship with African artefacts may well be the key to this, but I haven’t really come across really a satisfactory answer to it over the years even though it’s a question that comes up all the time.

And frustratingly he never expressed that in writing or in interviews so we don’t know, but if you do look at the sculptures and panitings you can see a similarity in the eyes of the sculptures and as Simonetta said they were influenced by African art. So, yes, it’s a long-lasting mystery really.