I first encountered the art work of Jeanne Hébuterne at an exhibition in Venice, curated by Christian Parisot at the Fondazione San Giorgio. Several pages of her sketchbook, property of the Hebuterne heirs, were displayed, along with three or four paintings. Overall, her works showed her transformation from a talented schoolgirl depicting cozy family settings — to an artist meticulously documenting her life in Paris and a woman celebrating her own body with sensuous nudes (some of which were self-portraits).
I was blown away by her beauty, talent, and by the story of her tragic love affair with Modigliani: her companion, mentor, and god. Thus began my fascination – perhaps obsession—with Jeanne Hébuterne. I began researching her life and work, and reported my findings in an essay: The Case of Jeanne Hébuterne: Missing Person in Montparnasse – published in the Literary Review in 2002 and nominated for a Pushcart prize.
Researching Modigliani and Jeanne Hébuterne is a bit like tracing a labyrinth – it can lead you into some strange loops & entanglements. The more I read and researched, the more complex her story became. In addition to attending exhibitions, studying art catalogues and on line auction sites, reading through thousands of pages of memoirs, art criticism, biographies, autobiographies, and interviewing Parisot through emails and in person — I explored avenues in the real world as well: retracing Jeanne & Modi’s steps around Paris.
One cold, bright winter day I found myself standing outside the blue door to number 8 Rue de la Grande Chaumiere, where Modigliani had his studio in the last few years of his life. Peering in through the arabesque iron grille decorating the window, I glimpsed a dusty stairway spiraling up, illuminated by a ray of sunshine. That staircase is iconic in the myth of Modi & Jeanne.
In her last days, Jeanne had to trudge up and down those steps, nine months pregnant, to fetch water from a fountain in the courtyard as there was no running water in their studio. Down those steps Modigliani was carried by his neighbor Ortiz, and bundled into a taxi which would take him to the Charity Hospital where he died. Up those steps, Jeanne’s own body was transported in a wheelbarrow by a street sweeper , on orders from the Hébuterne family after she had fallen backwards through the window of her childhood home.
Writer Violet Paget, aka Vernon Lee, believed that we leave bits of ourselves in the places we have lived, energies which “warm” the atmosphere for those who come after us. Visitors following in our footsteps can sense the presence of those energies in certain places, which stir our emotions. For me this has very much to do with the concept of soul of place – ( to which I have devoted an entire book)
As I gazed in, I did not feel it was a tragic place at all. I knew in my bones that the life Jeanne & Modi had led there together had many rich moments of creativity, contentment and joy.
I snapped a picture with my iphone, then continued on my walk. Later, scrolling through my pictures, I was astonished by what I found. In the photograph I took of the studio, you could see amid dust motes swirling in sunshine and shadows a ghostly presence taking shape. The door in the back leading out to the courtyard glowed, almost pulsed, with a misty light – as if it opened into the afterlife.
That picture, that moment, that emotion I had felt looking in from the street was the germ of my cross-genre novel Loving Modigliani: The Afterlife of Jeanne Hebuterne, part of which is narrated by Jeanne’s ghost. Kirkus describes my novel as “Brilliantly researched, imaginative, cross-genre historical fiction.”
I tried to express the emotions I felt while looking in from the street in this video: https://youtu.be/8qkG3WaxG20?si=dBUEw39hjd-8aLlK
Following Jeanne I became a flaneur. Readers have asked me about the places I describe in the book. Which ones are real – which ones are imaginary? So I thought I would provide this GUIDE TO THE PLACES OF JEANNE HEBUTERNE & MODIGLIANI as presented in my novel, Loving Modigliani.
There are three Paris itineraries in the novel – those relating to Jeanne and Modi’s life in the city: studios, art schools, cafes, homes, cemeteries, public places. This is the real Paris of their era. One critic called my recreation of the Paris of those years as “ a living map of Montparnasse.”
Then there is “the Other Paris” overlayed upon, or beneath, the real Paris. Liminal Paris.
While two-thirds of the novel takes place in the real world, the rest unfolds in the realm of myth, the underworld of the Other Paris. It’s a dusty, colorless city where the sun doesn’t reach, where music runs backwards, where the dead shuffle about looking for their lost loved ones and are judged for their misdeeds and failings. This Paris of penumbra is connected to the living world by bridges, doors, train stations, and catacombs, but you need a guide to go back and forth. Jeanne will traverse this dreary terrain on a quest for Modigliani, only to discover that he cannot found there – I won’t say any more than that.
The third is Paris in the ninteen-eighties where the unnamed narrator, an art history grad student, searches for traces of Jeanne and Modi, helped by a woman who knew the couple in her childhood.
In the next three installments of this blog, I will lead you through my deep map of Paris to visit the real and fictional places that inspired my novel.
The Magic Library of Bomarzo 
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