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A woman with peachy skin and dark auburn hair is shown from her chest up sitting in a wooden chair in this vertical portrait painting. Her body is angled to our right, and her left arm, farther from us, rests on the back of the chair so the fingers of that hand rest alongside her left cheek. Her face is angled to our right but her dark eyes cut back to look at or toward us from the corners of her almond-shaped eyes. She has thin, gently arched brows, a long, sloping nose, and her burgundy-red lips are closed. Her features are outlined with delicate, dark gray or black lines. Bangs sweep across her forehead, and her hair looks like it might be pulled up and back. Her rust-brown garment has a square neckline, and a lighter strip of smoke gray and sky blue runs along her right shoulder, closer to us. She sits in front of an indistinctly patterned wine-red wall, with a lighter, tan-colored rectangle in the upper right corner. The background, her clothing, and the hand by her face are painted with areas of mottled color but the skin of her face seems smooth. The artist signed the painting with bright red letters at the upper right, “Modigliani.”

Amedeo Modigliani

Adrienne (Woman with Bangs), 1917

Not on View

Medium

oil on linen

Dimensions

overall: 55.3 x 38.1 cm (21 3/4 x 15 in.)

framed: 71.4 x 54.6 x 6.3 cm (28 1/8 x 21 1/2 x 2 1/2 in.)

Credit Line

Chester Dale Collection

Accession Number

1963.10.171

Artists / Makers

Amedeo Modigliani (artist) Italian, 1884 - 1920

Image Use

This image is in the public domain.
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Inscription

upper right: Modigliani

Provenance

Possibly Paul Guillaume [d. 1934].[1] purchased 1927 by (Etienne Bignou, Paris);[2] sold 18 April 1928 to Chester Dale [1883-1962], New York; bequest 1963 to NGA.

[1] A photograph of this painting is among those in an album of contre-types which belonged to Paul Guillaume. See letter dated 5 March 1998 from Pierre Georgel in NGA curatorial files.

[2] According to Chester Dale papers in NGA curatorial files, the painting was "bought in 1927 by Mr. Bignou from an artist in Montparnasse, a friend of Modigliani." The Bignou photograph albums at the Documentation, Musée d'Orsay (copy, NGA curatorial files), contain no additional provenance information.

Associated Names

Bignou, Etienne
Dale, Chester
Guillaume, Paul

Exhibition History

1929: Paintings by Amedeo Modigliani, Arts Club of Chicago, 1929, no. 9.

1929: Paintings by Amedeo Modigliani, De Hauke and Co., Inc., New York, 1929, no. 20.

1931: Amedeo Modigliani: Retrospective Exhibition of Paintings, Demotte, Inc., New York, 1931, no. 14.

1933: Modigliani, Palais de Beaux Arts, Brussels, 1933, no. 24, repro.

1934: French Painting from the Fifteenth Century to the Present Day, California Palace of the Legion of Honor, San Francisco, 1934, no. 214.

1934: Modigliani, Kunsthalle, Basel, 1934, no. 16.

1943: Twentieth Century French Paintings from the Chester Dale Collection, Art Institute of Chicago, 1943-1952 (extended loan), unnumbered catalogue, repro. p. 38

1951: Modigliani, Museum of Modern Art, New York; Cleveland Museum of Art, 1951.

1952: Twentieth Century French Paintings from the Chester Dale Collection, National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1952, no. 42, repro.

1965: The Chester Dale Bequest, National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., 1965, unnumbered checklist.

1983: Modigliani: An Anniversary Exhibition, J. Paul Getty Museum, Malibu; Kimbell Art Museum, Fort Worth; National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., 1983-1984, unnumbered brochure [exhibited in Washington only].

Bibliography

1929: Dale, Maud. Before Manet to Modigliani from the Chester Dale Collection. New York, 1929: no. 99, repro., as Head of Young Woman with a Bang.

1943: Twentieth Century French Paintings from the Chester Dale Collection. The Art Institute of Chicago, 1943:, 38, repro.

1952: Twentieth Century French Paintings from the Chester Dale Collection. National Gallery of Art. Washington, 1952 (2nd ed., 1960; rev. ed., 1965): 42, repro.

1960: Twentieth Century French Paintings from the Chester Dale Collection. National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., 1960 (2nd ed.): 44, repro.

1965: Ceroni, Ambrogio. Amedeo Modigliani: Dessins et Sculptures, avec suite du catalogue illustré des peintures. Milan, 1965: no. 168, repro.

1965: Summary Catalogue of European Paintings and Sculpture. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1965: 91.

1965: Twentieth Century French Paintings & Sculpture of the French School in the Chester Dale Collection. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1965 (rev. ed.): 55, repro.

1968: National Gallery of Art. European Paintings and Sculpture, Illustrations. Washington, 1968: 80, repro.

1970: Ceroni, Ambrogio, and Leone Piccioni. I dipinti di Modigliani. Milan, 1970: no. 64, repro.

1970: Lanthemann, Joseph. Modigliani 1884-1920. Catalogue raisonné. Barcelona, 1970: 121, no. 205, repro.

1972: Ceroni, Ambrogio, and Françoise Cachin. Tout l'oeuvre peint de Modigliani. Translated by Simone Darses. Paris, 1972: no. 64, repro.

1975: European Paintings: An Illustrated Summary Catalogue. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1975: 236, repro.

1984: Walker, John. National Gallery of Art, Washington. Rev. ed. New York, 1984: 588, no. 904, color repro.

1985: European Paintings: An Illustrated Catalogue. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1985: 273, repro.

1990: Parisot, Christian. Modigliani: Catalogue Raisonné 2 vols. Livorno, 1990: 2:25/1915.

1991: Kopper, Philip. America's National Gallery of Art: A Gift to the Nation. New York, 1991: 245, repro.