My aunt, renowned as artist and teacher, though self-taught, often discussed art with her favorite pupil, Juliana. They were closer than sisters, certainly closer than Auntie had ever been with my mother. The pair explored galleries together and discussed classical artists after painting sessions. Their opinions were aligned on most artists—except for Modigliani. Juliana revered him but my aunt despised his work. One afternoon, I overheard this benedetto pair arguing. I was surprised by the intensity of my aunt’s rage as she called Modigliani’s perspective irrational and wrong, especially his paintings of thin-faced, often redheaded women; in particular, The Woman with Red Hair, on display at the National Gallery.

I wondered at the depth of Auntie’s anger. Did my zaftig, raven-haired Auntie dislike this thin perspective, thinking it a damning judgement on her own appearance? But she had no such objections to El Greco and his array of molto magro men and women, saints, angels, streets. I filed this argument in my subconscious where it remained for many years, even long after my aunt had passed on.

Then, two seemingly unrelated incidents brought the argument back to the front of my mind. Several weeks ago I was looking though a box of old photos and found my mother’s 1931 high school yearbook. In black and white, her stylishly cropped red hair was styled much like that of Modigliani’s model from 1917.

Mere days later, in a search for paintings focusing on the color red, Modigliani’s Woman with Red Hair jumped full screen onto my computer. The sight sent me into a dizzying spin backwards in time, releasing the memory of that argument and at last providing me a probable answer as to why my aunt’s dislike of Modigliani was so deep. My mom at age eighteen, in the yearbook photo, and the artist’s model were doppelgängers. The slant, obsidian eyes of the woman staring out at me from the painting—the woman’s pose, elbow resting on the back of the chair as she idly fingers her white lace collar—this woman’s personality mirrored that of my mother.

By railing against Modigliani, my aunt was openly expressing her resentment of my mother in a way she never did, at least in front of me or any others. I knew Auntie especially envied their father calling my mom his Princess, because of her curly, red-gold crown. And because my mom was the obedient sister, Auntie became the rebel, turning down a scholarship in art, defying her parents’ love for formal learning. It seemed to me that my aunt’s resentment had lasted well into adulthood, even outlasting my mother’s existence on this earth.

If I had confronted Auntie with these thoughts about her reasons for hating Modigliani, she would have denied it all, asserting herself to have been the better sister. However, when Auntie lied, her bone-china-white cheeks colored deeply, making Auntie also a Woman in Red. So, I would have had my answer.

The Woman with Red Hair (oil on canvas, 1917)
by Amedeo Modigliani (1884-1920)
National Gallery of Art

Image downloaded from Wikimedia on 7 April 2023:
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Amedeo_Modigliani_-_Woman_with_Red_Hair_(1917).jpg

Joan Leotta

plays with words on page and stage. She performs tales featuring food, family, nature, and strong women. In addition to her ten published books, her varied writings have appeared or are forthcoming in The Ekphrastic Review, Pinesong, Brass Bell, Verse Visual, anti-heroin chic, Silver Birch, Ovunquesiamo, Verse Virtual, Poetry in Plain Sight, Gargoyle, and others. Her chapbook Feathers on Stone was published by Main Street Rag in November 2022, and can be ordered from the author as well as from the publisher.

Ms. Leotta is a 2021 Pushcart nominee. Her microfiction “Magic Slippers” received the Penny Fiction 2021 award and was anthologized in From the Depths (Issue 19, Haunted Waters Press). In early 2022, she was named a runner-up in the Frost Foundation Poetry Competition. And her poem “Magritte’s Apple Explains It All” was nominated for Best of the Net 2023 by The Ekphrastic Review.