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In 1920, at the age of thirty-five, Amedeo Modigliani died in poverty and neglect in Paris. An Italian Jew from a bourgeois family, he had a weakness for drink, hashish, and the many women who were drawn to his good looks and charismatic charm. His friends included Picasso, Utrillo and Soutine, among others, yet his work was never recognised in his own lifetime. Today's artworld acknowledges him as a master whose oeuvre-sculptures, portraits, and nudes cannot satisfy collectors'demands. With a lively but judicious hand, biographer Jeffrey Meyers sketches Modigliani and his art, illuminating not only this little-known figure but also the painters, writers and lovers who shared early twentieth-century Paris with him.