Portrait of Picasso 1915

Amedeo Modigliani painted this portrait of Picasso using oil on canvas, and it’s a real peek into a friendship between artists, a kind of passing of the baton. Look at the way Modigliani has rendered Picasso's face, a mask-like surface of warm browns and pinks. It's like he’s trying to see through him, past the surface, into the soul of a fellow artist. He’s been pretty gestural with the medium; you can imagine him, perhaps in a state, swiping at the canvas, searching for the likeness, both physical and psychological. I wonder what Picasso thought of it? Did he see himself in those almond-shaped eyes and elongated features? Did he recognize the ambition, the intensity, the vulnerability that Modigliani captured? Painters are always in dialogue with each other, riffing off each other's ideas and pushing the boundaries of what painting can be. And isn't it lovely when this exchange becomes tangible?