Jeanne Modigliani

Jeanne Modigliani (29 November 1918 – 27 July 1984) was the biographer of her father, artist Amedeo Modigliani, writing the 1958 book Modigliani, man and myth, later translated into English from the Italian by Esther Rowland Clifford.

Her father, Amedeo Modigliani, was an Italian artist who worked mainly in France. Primarily a figurative artist, he became known for paintings and sculptures in a modern style characterised by mask-like faces and elongation of form. He died in 1920 of tubercular meningitis, exacerbated by poverty, overwork, and addiction to alcohol and narcotics.

Her mother, Jeanne Hébuterne, was a French artist, best known as her father's frequent subject and common-law wife. She committed suicide the day after his death.

After her parents' deaths when she was fourteen months old, young Jeanne was cared for by her maternal grandparents until her paternal aunt adopted her.

Jeanne married Italian economist and journalist Mario Cesare Silvio Levi. During World War II, she participated in the French Resistance. During this time she met another Resistance fighter, Valdemar "Valdi" Nechtschein, who was also married. They began an affair, and in May 1946, Jeanne gave birth to their daughter, Anne. Eventually, both divorced their spouses and married one another. Their second daughter together, Laure, was born in 1951.

Jeanne and Valdi divorced in 1980, four years before her death.