Modigliani without peace. There is controversy over ‘Portrait of Picasso’
LIVORNO – The genius of Amedeo Modigliani he seems to have no peace and in his glorious posthumous career the ‘false’ nightmare returns cyclically.
After the three false sculptures, in fact, ascertained in the ’80s, here is today a sprout from the pages of The Corriere della Sera, the news of an exhibit to the Public Prosecutor of Rome for the presence, in an exhibition dedicated to Modigliani set up in Vienna, of some false works. Among the 4 such attentive ones, at least one, ‘Portrait of Picasso’, would certainly be for the accusers.
«It was the one who presented the complaint – reads the newspaper – Guido Guastalla, art historian, gallery owner, appointed art expert by the court of Grosseto and director of the Modigliani birthplace of Livorno ». “There is no doubt that Portrait of Pablo Picasso is apocryphal – confirms al Corriere della Sera Guastalla – but in the Vienna exhibition there are four other works attributed to Modigliani that are more than doubtful. They are not provided with suitable documentation of authenticity and stylistically they appear badly painted by unskilled forgers ».
The work of discord had already been published in Italy in 1984 in Livorno, on the occasion of the centenary of the artist’s birth. Then they were the two art historians Maurizio Calvesi and Federico Zeri to brand the work as a fake.
But the organizers of the Austrian exhibition do not agree and reject all accusations. The curator Marc Restellini, met from Corriere della Sera he declared: «The painting in the Vienna exhibition is not fake but incontrovertibly authentic and before affirming or writing it one should be sure that the exposition tells the truth». With all due respect to Modigliani and his artistic genius.