Sotheby’s is to offer an important Modigliani portrait from the collection of art collector Paul Alexandre in the forthcoming “Art Impressionniste et Moderne” sale organized at its venue in Paris on March 23. Paul Alexandre was the first patron of the seminal painter and the story linking these two, Amedeo Modigliani and Paul Alexandre is quite extraordinary, going beyond the simple tale of a friendship. The relationship stemmed from the passion between the connection between an artist and his first patron. Two of them met in the November of 1907 when Doctor Paul Alexandre and his brother, Jean, set up the mythical Maison du Delta in Montmartre for the use of young artists. The young Paul Alexandre was extremely passionate about art, and at the time, he was training as a doctor in the Lariboisière Hospital. He created a network of artist friends known as the “Delta colony” in which his brother accompanied and helped him. The group flaunted members like the sculptor Maurice Drouart, the artists Henri Doucet and Albert Gleizes. Another seminal sculptor Constantin Brâncuși later joined them.The circle later settled at 7 rue du Delta in 1907. Paul and Jean Alexandre transformed some of the abandoned premises into a place of exchange for a modest rent, and it gradually helped the early 2oth century artists of Paris and around the world to their mutual aid. It was in that very place where Paul Alexandre first met Amedeo Modigliani who was a novice in the art scene as he had just arrived in Paris. As Noël Alexandre , the son of this prodigious Paul Alexandre, quotes his father: “It was Doucet who brought him to the Delta for the first time […]. Modigliani told Doucet that he had been thrown out of a small studio that he occupied on the Place Jean-Baptiste Clément and that he had nowhere to go… Doucet offered him to come to the Delta where he could stay if he wanted and where he could lodge with his things. This was how my friendship with Modigliani began. I was 26 years old, Modigliani 23, and my brother 21.” (Modigliani Inconnu, p. 53-54).The two men became close friends immediately and their bond lasted until August 1914 when the doctor was enlisted and sent to the front. Through these seven years, Paul Alexandre, apart from being Modigliani’s friend and adviser, was also his only financial supporter. During the small time window of these few years, he bought hundreds of drawings and several major paintings of Modigliani. And the presentation in this lot includes the paintings created by Modigliani during this period. This fabulous collection of paintings by the veteran artist was rediscovered only after the death of Modigliani in 1968. Notably, the credit to the entire endeavor goes to Paul’s son Noël Alexandre.The auction celebrates the occasion to pay tribute to the exceptional contribution of this visionary collector, Paul Alexandre, who played an important and decisive role launching the career of Modigliani and with that the show is to debut the “Portrait inachevé de Paul Alexandre” (1913), as well as two drawings representing Paul Alexandre both of which have been so far kept in the family’s collection.Jeanne Modigliani once said of Paul: “He was the kind of increasingly rare collector in love with art in the deepest sense of the word, the joy and despair of researchers: joy because he kept intact works of indisputable authenticity, dating from the period of Modigliani’s beginnings; despair because he jealously protected the works and no one could claim to have seen the entire collection.” (Jeanne Modigliani, Modigliani, Une Biographie, Paris, 1990, p. 64).This deep bonding between the two men made it work for Paul Alexandre to gather a vast collection of works by this artist and the list includes almost all the drawings made by Modigliani before the war as well as several major paintings by him.
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