Drinking Coffee with Amedeo Modigliani

The reckless life

Modigliani had, like few other artists, such a short and dramatic existence. Even his end had very mysterious implications. In fact, even if it has never been well clarified, the death of "Modì" was due to a violent beating committed by unknown and, moreover, his agony was very slow.

Amedeo Modigliani era nato a Livorno nell’estate del 1884 e quindi, quando morì aveva appena 36 anni. Anche la sua arte pittorica, più di quella scultorea che ha mancato solo di tempo per diventare preminente e di assoluto valore, ha avuto un tardivo riconoscimento.

Amedeo Modigliani was born in Livorno in the summer of 1884 and therefore, when he died he was just 36 years old. Even his pictorial art, more than the sculptural one that only took time to become pre-eminent and of absolute value, had a late recognition.

If you are curious to know more about other artists related to the world of coffee, read our article on the coffee of the arts of Pintor do Cafè.

Drinking coffee stimulates creativity

Those who wrote about him say that one night, after smoking hashish and drinking who knows how much Vermouth and who knows how many coffees, he got up suddenly from the table of a Café in Montmartre, He took a sheet and suddenly began to draw with fast and nervous strokes screaming to those present that he had found his way by realizing the unconscious art that was inside him. As soon as the drawing was finished, he mounted on the table triumphantly exhibiting a swan-neck woman’s head. Drinking coffee leads him to stimulate his creativity.
The main feature that will distinguish many of Modigliani’s paintings was realized at the same time: the beautiful Swanneck Ladies.

After this short preamble that we wanted to do we get back on track and we go back to the beginning of the unfortunately short story of this great artistic character.

So Amedeo Modigliani was born in Livorno in July 1884 by Eugenia Garsin and Flaminio Modigliani, two Jews who with their union give birth to a family initially very comfortable but that will face economic problems over time. In fact, as a result of the failure of the family business (wood and paper) the Modigliani will experience stormy moments. They will even face the Bailiff several times.

Whatever the case, apart from these family misadventures, Amedeo - affectionately called Dedo - lives a quiet childhood, behaving well in studies, revealing the signs of a great and natural talent in drawing and painting. He will therefore attend with great enthusiasm and application several art courses earning - still very young - the unanimous appreciation of the artistic environment of Livorno.

Unfortunately, the destiny - already in 1898 - presents them the first check. Amedeo becomes ill with a strange typhoid fever that severely damages his lungs by undermining his fiber. Even years later, this disease will prove mercilessly fatal.

In any case, Dedo left school at a very young age to devote himself exclusively to painting. In particular, he follows the lessons of the painter and master Guglielmo Micheli attending the study of these at Villa Bacciocchi in Livorno. Dedo therefore has the opportunity to make acquaintances and to compare himself with other artists. A great opportunity is presented by meeting the Livorno Giovanni Fattori. A legendary figure of painting unanimously considered the father of the movement macchiaiolo. Factors is fascinated by the student and will become his mentor. Not surprisingly, the latter was also a regular coffee lover, so much so that the two then, over time, found themselves drinking more than a few coffees a day.

Between the ups and downs and the recurrent pleurisy that caused him tuberculosis, Modì manages to recover anyway. We arrive therefore to 1906 when the artist gets - thanks to the decisive help of his mother Eugenia and his uncle Garsin - the money needed to move to Paris.

It is the fulfilment of his lifelong dream: Paris!
Not only that, because it also brings with it a letter of introduction for Granowski, a painter and sculptor who lives in Montmartre and who at the time enjoys great artistic esteem.
So Amedeo moves to Montmartre. The district became famous for being considered the world center of all the young artists who arrived in the Ville Lumière attracted by the fame of the Impressionists. He rents a studio in rue Caulaincourt right next to where the famous Toulouse-Lautrec, who had died just two or three years earlier, had his own studio.

We therefore find him with the dress that will be proverbial to him and that is with the wide velvet jacket to the Maremma, a red scarf to the neck and a wide-brimmed hat. He then wears one of his blue plaid or striped shirts made of mattress canvas.
With his overwhelming personality, a lot of nerve and the undoubted artistic ability is immediately inside the life of Montmartre. On, in the highest part of the district, around the Place du Tertre and near the Sacre Coeur there was the so-called Butte where the wretches of the city were concentrated and where young artists can find a place to stay for little money. Mainly Cafes and Taverns. Because as we will understand, drinking coffee was among Amedeo’s many passions.

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Drinking coffee in Paris

In fact, the real Art Academy of that Paris were precisely the Cafè, the Osterie, the Bistrot and the Cabaret where art was discussed. So local remained famous as the Osteria di Pére Frédé, the Lapin Agile, the Bateau Lavoir, the Café Vachette and other cafes where in a short time the Modigliani knows and makes friends with big names such as Pablo Picasso, Andrè Derain, Guillaume Apollinaire, Diego Rivera and others. Drinking coffee was therefore a moment of artistic sharing from which it was essential to participate.

If you are interested in learning more about coffee lovers artists, read our article on literary coffee.

For everyone and with the fame that gradually became simply "Modì" that in French is pronounced as "maudit" and that literally means cursed.
Actually, Modigliani had soon earned this fame by joining every evening, at the end of the lessons of the Academy, with other fools and along with the girls of the neighborhood. They experimented with spiritualism and - thanks to hashish - who knows what else. Obviously Modì also used to fund Eugenia’s savings.

With these companions and in these places the greatest inspiration could only come from vermouth and hashish, ether, sometimes cocaine but especially coffee. Drinking coffee, more than a few coffees a day, to stimulate the common source of inspiration that was the imagination. Paris, then, was that. The Universal Exhibition and the nascent Eiffel Tower had opened a new century to young people from all over the world.

In these companies Modigliani met Beatrice Hastings, a beautiful, rich and eccentric poet. They loved each other, they beat each other, they consumed all kinds of drugs and experiences together and they stayed together for a long time. Hastings called Modì a pearl and a pig.
Fortunately Modigliani - almost to compensate for bad habits and as many other painters lived in Paris - also took the strong habit of consuming coffee. Coffee that he drank constantly and in large quantities so that we believe that the drink acted as a healthy antidote to the effects of filth and miscellaneous mixtures he used to drink or aspirate. For dear Amedeo, drinking coffee had become more than just a moment of pleasure.

In the meantime, and fortunately, his paintings arrived more and more often in the small windows but also on display at the important galleries that were very numerous in Montmartre.

Growth as a painter

He grew more and more. As a painter but also unfortunately as a drinker of vermouth, wine and coffee and not just a coffee a day... He smoked everything, even opium, and inhaled cocaine whenever he could.

The love, overwhelming, even of a single night were then natural consequences of his way of life. On the other hand, all this earthquake that was stirring in him could not last long, especially given his poor health.

We love to think that the large quantities of coffee that he swallowed from early morning until late at night, helped him and charged him to bear all those vices that he indulged. Drinking coffee, a lot of coffee, was a routine that now distinguished him.

It is therefore clear that Amedeo took many coffee breaks during the day. If you also want to know how a coffee break can stimulate your creativity, read our dedicated article.

You can’t be "cursed" until that point. She was on drugs, getting drunk, constantly hitting someone and then loving one woman after another.
One model after another. He loved to say, "When a woman poses for a painter, you give her!"
More "maudit" than you could. Yet he was also generous and sincere. Sometimes loyal. He gave no weight to money. Even in times of poverty, Modigliani despised money and was always ready to give the poorest what little he had.

Of that period, the wine hangover that he took in the company of his friend Maurice Utrillo, a great painter in his turn, remained famous.
Modigliani was very close to Utrillo and it often happened that the two, drunk and thrown out of the Cafè, ended up beating each other loudly then ending the night embraced in some corner of the square. It is said that Pablo Picasso, who occasionally frequented the couple, used to address Utrillo jokingly nicknamed "litrillo".

And we are now at the end of this article when we talk about January 24, 1920 which is the date of death of Amedeo Modigliani. An immense crowd accompanied the painter’s coffin to the cemetery of Père-Lachaise.
All the girls from Montparnasse had brought flowers to Modì.
It was a simple homage to those who, in their brief existence, had loved what was possible to love. Our Coffee, too.

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Source: Agostino Narizzano – Cose semplici sugli illustri amici del caffè – Franco Puzzo Editore.