Kimbell Art Museum scores first major U.S. Modigliani exhibit
by Debby Whitworth, Reporter

   The Kimbell Art Museum will present the first major exhibition in the United States in more than 40 years on the early modern painter Amedeo Modigliani (1884-1920).

   Modigliani and the Artists of Montparnasse will be on view through May 25. The exhibition will feature approximately 60 paintings, sculptures and works by artists who lived in the Montparnasse area of Paris, including Constantin Brancusi, Henri Matisse, Pablo Picasso and Chaim Souine.

   The works are on loan from museums and private collections across America, Europe and Japan. Many pieces have never been seen before in the United States.

   Modigliani is best known for his elegantly stylized depiction of the human figure, his studies of women with elongated necks and soulful eyes and his sensitive female nudes.

   His one-person exhibition at the Galerie Berthe Weill in Paris sparked controversy in 1917. A series of reclining nudes were considered obscene, and the police closed the show. What proved offensive about Modigliani's nudes at the time was their immediacy and frankness, which viewers today consider humanity. Four examples are included in this exhibition.

   The inclusion of the works of his friends and neighbors in this exhibit give emphasis to the district known as Montparnasse. Marcel Duchamp described the artists who lived there as "the first truly international group of artists we ever had." Artists such as Brancusi and Jacques Lipchitz saw their style mature quickly and inevitably toward modernism upon their arrival.

   The exhibition will show how Modigliani's art and life epitomize the diverse, multicultural artistic approach that developed Montparnasse at the beginning of the 20th century.

   A special lecture on Modigliani will be presented Saturday, Feb. 8, by Dr. Kenneth Wayne, Albright-Knox Art Gallery curator and curator of this exhibition. The lecture will start at 10:30 a.m. in the Darnell Street Auditorium, across Darnell Street from the Kimbell Art Museum. Admission is free.

   Exhibit admission is $10 for adults, $8 for senior citizens and students with identification. Children ages 6-11 accompanied by an adult are $6.

   The hours of operation are Tuesday-Thursday and Saturday, 10 a.m.-5 p.m.; Friday, 12-8 p.m.; Sunday, 12-5 p.m.; closed Mondays.

   For more information, call 817-332-8451.