Something for the weekend

Modigliani. My favourite artist. Introduced to me by my mate, Markham. (Writer extraordinaire.) He was heavily influenced by African masks. (Modigliani, not Markham.) Hence the elongated faces with quite a graphic quality. He died of tuberculosis at the tender age of 36. His wife, Jeanne Hebuterne, committed suicide the day after his death. She was his muse, 21 years old and pregnant with their child. Tragic.

I wrote a screenplay based on this painting. Nothing to do with Modigliani. It was a writing exercise I learned from Roger McGough while on a writers’ workshop in Grasse. Basically, you imagine what is going on outside of the borders of the painting. In this case, I wondered what was going on outside the window of the room where the model was sitting. It kind of snowballs from there…

Happy Easter, see you on the other side.