Elongated Head, Next to Column Base
1914-15
Before he became famous for painting those impossibly long, elegant necks, Modigliani was actually obsessed with sculpture—until the stone dust made him too sick to carve. Since most of his actual carvings were lost or destroyed, sketches like this from 1914 are rare glimpses into his 3D thinking. On the left, a ghostly, elongated U-shape hints at the stretched necks he would soon master, while the column base on the right shows him playing with Cubist geometry. It’s like watching an artist invent his own visual language, trading heavy stone for swift, expressive lines on paper.
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