I AM JEANNE HÉBUTERNE
By Olivia Elkaim

We all know her face because she was the sitter for countless paintings by the internationally renowned Amedeo Modigliani. The terrible fate of Jeanne Hebuterne, the famous painter’s last love.

Jeanne Hébuterne was still in her teens when she met Amedeo Modigliani in 1916. The then struggling artist was fifteen years her senior and lived in penury in the Montparnasse district of Paris. She wanted to escape her overbearing parents and become a painter herself. They fell passionately in love. From Paris to Nice – where they fled the action of the First World War – they defied tradition and family taboos. But their incandescent love drove them to the brink of madness. The story of Jeanne Hébuterne and Amedeo Modigliani is one of the most tragic love stories of the art world.


Olivia Elkaim was born in 1976. She is the author of Les Graffitis de Chambord and Les Oiseaux noirs de Massada published by Grasset, and Nous étions une histoire published by Stock. She has been fascinated by Jeanne Hébuterne for more than thirty years.