Monsieur Deleu
Medium
oil on canvas
Dimensions
overall: 81.1 x 46.7 cm (31 15/16 x 18 3/8 in.) framed: 90.8 x 55.5 cm (35 3/4 x 21 7/8 in.)
Classification
Painting
Department
CMC
Museum
National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.
Credit
Chester Dale Collection
Accession Number
1963.10.76
Art Historical Context
Amedeo Modigliani’s *Monsieur Deleu* (1916) captures the quiet elegance of a Parisian sitter through the artist’s signature approach to portraiture. Working in oil on canvas, Modigliani employed simplified forms and a restrained palette to emphasize the subject’s elongated features and contemplative gaze. The narrow vertical format of the painting, measuring roughly 81 by 47 centimeters, naturally complements the graceful proportions that define his figures. Painted during the height of World War I, this work belongs to Modigliani’s prolific period in Paris, when he focused almost exclusively...
About the Artist
Amedeo Modigliani · 1884–1920
Amedeo Modigliani (1884–1920) was an Italian painter and sculptor whose elegant, elongated figures and portraits rank among the most instantly recognizable images in modern art. Born in Livorno, Tuscany, to a Sephardic Jewish family, he studied at the academies of Florence and Venice before moving permanently to Paris in 1906, where he immersed himself in the bohemian artistic milieu of Montmartre...