Fondation Giacometti

In 1958, the architect Gordon Bunshaft, a collector of Giacometti’s works, approached the artist through Pierre Matisse to commission him for a monumental sculpture to be placed in front of a building he had conceived for the Chase Manhattan Bank, in New York. Giacometti accepted, and devoted a whole year to that work, from February 1959 to the spring of 1960. It gave him the opportunity to try again to create on the scale of a public space, a challenge that interested him since the Thirties, when he had worked at a sculpture for the garden of the villa of the Noailles in Hyères. As he told David Sylvester in 1965: “I always had the desire to know the biggest thing I could make; when an architect proposed that I make sculptures for a place, I said yes, because it was a good opportunity to settle that story.” The project took the shape of a composition that tackled the theme already approached in the “Cage” in 1950: a tall woman on a pedestal, a monumental man’s head placed on the ground, to which the artist was to add a walking man. However, the artist met up with difficulties for he did not wish to just create “a big sculpture that impressed because of its dimension”, and feared to leave the domain of sculpture to enter that of architecture, a worry aggravated by the fact that he had not seen the location. In April 1960, he cast the tall woman, a large head and two men walking in bronze. He placed them in the street, then had them transported to a garden, reaching the conclusion that it did not work, and abandoned the project, that was revived for the courtyard of the Fondation Maeght in 1963-64. The pieces created for this occasion have had, since 1960, an autonomous existence.

Signature and cast number engraved on the side of the base "Alberto Giacometti / Fondation AA Giacometti"

Annette GIACOMETTI
Succession Annette Giacometti
Fondation Alberto et Annette Giacometti

1994 Alberto Giacometti. Skulpturer. Mälningar. Teckningar, Malmö (Sweden), Malmö Konsthall, from October 29th 1994 to January 22nd 1995
2005 Alberto Giacometti au donjon de Vez, Vez (France), Donjon de Vez, from June 18th to October 2nd 2005
2006 Alberto Giacometti - Bror Hjorth, Stockholm (Sweden), Liljevalchs Konsthall, from September 23rd 2006 to January 7th 2007, no. 17
2007 Parc de sculptures, Caen (France), Musée des Beaux-Arts, from March 30th 2007 to January 15th 2008
2008 En perspective, Giacometti, Caen (France), Musée des Beaux-Arts, from May 17th to August 31st 2008
2008 Alberto Giacometti, Rotterdam (Netherlands), Kunsthal, from October 18th 2008 to February 8th 2009, no. 12
2010 Alberto Giacometti. Der Ursprung des Raumes, Wolfsbourg (Germany), Kunstmuseum Wolfsburg, from November 20th 2010 to March 6th 2011, no. 47
2011 Alberto Giacometti. Der Ursprung des Raumes, Salzbourg (Austria), Museum der Moderne Mönchsberg, from March 26th to July 3rd 2011
2011 Alberto Giacometti. Una retrospectiva. Colección de la Fundación Alberto y Annette Giacometti, Malaga (Spain), Museo Picasso, from October 17th 2011 to February 5th 2012
2012 Alberto Giacometti. Coleção da Fondation Alberto et Annette Giacometti, Paris, Sao Paulo (Brazil), Pinacoteca do estado, from March 24th to June 17th 2012
2012 Alberto Giacometti. Coleção da Fondation Alberto et Annette Giacometti, Paris, Rio de Janeiro (Brazil), Museu de Arte Moderna, from July 17th to September 16th 2012
2012 Alberto Giacometti. Colección de la Fundación Alberto y Annette Giacometti,París, Buenos Aires (Argentina), Fundación PROA, from October 13th 2012 to January 9th 2013
2014 Alberto Giacometti, Pionnier du Modernisme, Vienne (Austria), Leopold Museum, from October 17th 2014 to January 26th 2015
2015 Alberto Giacometti, Istanbul, Tepebasi-Beyoglu-Istanbul, PERA MUSEUM, from February 10th to April 26th 2015
2016 Alberto Giacometti retrospective at Yuz Museum, Shanghai (China), The Shanghai Yuz Museum, from March 22nd to July 31st 2016
2017 Picasso-Giacometti at Doha, Doha (Qatar), Fire Station, from February 22nd to May 21st 2017
2017 Alberto Giacometti, L'Oeuvre ultime., Nice (France), Espace culturel départemental du port de Nice, from June 23rd to October 15th 2017
2018 Alberto Giacometti Retrospective Québec, Quebec (Canada), Musée National des Beaux Arts du Québec, from February 8th to May 13th 2018
2018 Giacometti Retrospective Guggenheim New York, New York, NY (United States Of America), The Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, from June 8th to September 12th 2018
2018 Giacometti Restrospective Bilbao, Bilbao (Spain), Guggenheim Museum, from October 19th 2018 to February 24th 2019
2019 Alberto Giacometti Une aventure moderne, Villeneuve d'Ascq (France), LaM, Lille Métropole Musée d'art moderne d'art contemporain et d'art brut, from March 11th to June 11th 2019
2019 Histoire de corps, Paris, Institut Giacometti, from June 22nd to November 6th 2019
2021 Picasso-Giacometti Museum Voorlinden, Wassenaar (Netherlands), Museum Voorlinden, from October 16th 2021 to February 13th 2022
2023 Le temps de Giacometti., Toulouse (France), Les Abattoirs. Musée d'art moderne et contemporain-Frac Occitanie Toulouse, from September 22nd 2023 to January 21st 2024

Sune NORDGREN (under the direction of), Alberto Giacometti. Skulpturer. Mälningar. Teckningar, Stockholm : Raster Förlag, 1994, p. 122 et 223, ill. p. 122
Véronique WIESINGER (under the direction of), Alberto Giacometti au Donjon de Vez, Oeuvres de la Fondation Alberto et Annette Giacometti, Vez : Donjon de Vez, 2005, p. 28, ill. p. 24, 29 & 35
Véronique WIESINGER, Bo NILSSON, Alberto Giacometti. Bror Hjorth, Stockholm : Liljevalchs Konsthall, 2006, p. 89, ill. p. 61
Véronique WIESINGER, Bo NILSSON, Alberto Giacometti. Partial reprint with corrections, Stockholm : Liljevalchs Konsthall, 2006, cat. no. 17, p. 90, ill. p. 62
Véronique WIESINGER, En perspective, Giacometti, Lyon : Fage Editions, 2008, p. 134, ill. p. 12 & 134
Véronique WIESINGER, Charlotte VAN LINGEN (under the direction of), Alberto Giacometti, Harderwijk : D'jonge Hond, 2008, cat. no. 12, ill. p. 77
Markus BRUDERLIN, Toni STOOSS (under the direction of), Alberto Giacometti. Der Ursprung des Raumes, Ostfildern : HATJE CANTZ VERLAG, 2010 / Wolfsbourg : Kunstmuseum Wolfsburg, 2010 / Salzbourg : Museum der Moderne Mönchsberg, 2010, p. 251, ill. p. 137
Markus BRUDERLIN, Toni STOOSS (under the direction of), Alberto Giacometti. The Origin of Space, Ostfildern : HATJE CANTZ VERLAG, 2010 / Wolfsburg : Kunstmuseum Wolfsburg, 2010, p. 251, ill. p. 137
Véronique WIESINGER (under the direction of), Giacometti, Sao Paulo : Cosac & Naify Ediçoes, 2012, ill. p. 184
Véronique WIESINGER (under the direction of), Alberto Giacometti. A Retrospective, Barcelona : Ediciones Poligrafa, 2012 / Malaga : Museo Picasso, 2012, ill. p. 38, 266
Véronique WIESINGER (under the direction of), Alberto Giacometti. Una retrospectiva, Barcelona : Ediciones Poligrafa, 2012 / Malaga : Museo Picasso, 2012, ill. p. 38, 266