Fondation Giacometti

When Giacometti was quite young, he was already modelling heads. It was for him the exercise par excellence, enabling him to move forward in his effort to depict the particular vision he had of the world surrounding him. As Giacometti confided to André Parinaud in 1962: “If one had a head, one would have everything else; if one doesn’t have the head, one has nothing.” These busts of men, for which Giacometti’s brother has very likely sat, are not a portrait in the conventional sense of the term, but an effort repeated in a systematic fashion to penetrate the heart of the essence of the human being. With that work in series devoid of any anecdote, Giacometti also showed himself an artist in phase with the interests and researches of artists in the Fifties and Sixties. Diego Giacometti was the favourite male model of his brother, whose assistant and technical expert he had been since the middle of the Twenties. Though initially living in Alberto’s studio, Diego then rented a studio adjoining at 46 rue Hippolyte-Maindron, and because of that, he was always available. Thanks to him, Alberto Giacometti was able to practise without limitation the depiction of a man’s head as he saw it. Alternating the work from life and from memory, Giacometti had such an intimacy with his model that this one used to appear repeatedly in spite of himself, under his ballpoint pen and between his fingers, sometimes merging with his own features.

Signature engraved at the bottom to its proper left "Alberto Giacometti"
Cast number engraved at the bottom to its proper right "Fondation Alberto et Annette Giacometti"

Annette GIACOMETTI
Succession Annette Giacometti
Fondation Alberto et Annette Giacometti

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. 26
2008 Alberto Giacometti, Rotterdam (Netherlands), Kunsthal, from October 18th 2008 to February 8th 2009, no. 97
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
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 Alberto Giacometti - Tate Modern London, London (United Kingdom), Tate Gallery, from May 10th to September 10th 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, D'après le modèle (Prague)., Prague (Czech Republic), Veletržní palác, from July 18th to December 1st 2019
2021 Alberto Giacometti. Une rétrospective. Le réel merveilleux., MONACO (Monaco), Grimaldi Forum Monaco, from July 3rd to August 29th 2021
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
2024 Alberto Giacometti – What Meets the Eye., Copenhague (Denmark), Statens Museum for Kunst, from February 10th to May 20th 2024
2026 Alberto Giacometti - Minsheng Art Museum, Shanghai (China), Shanghai Minsheng Art Museum, from July 16th to December 6th 2026

"Artists' museum exhibitions", in Gagosian Gallery, New York, NY : Gagosian Gallery, summer 2012, ill. p. 62
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. 43, ill. p. 38, 41 & 43
Véronique WIESINGER, Bo NILSSON, Alberto Giacometti. Bror Hjorth, Stockholm : Liljevalchs Konsthall, 2006, p. 92, ill. p. 70
Véronique WIESINGER, Bo NILSSON, Alberto Giacometti. Partial reprint with corrections, Stockholm : Liljevalchs Konsthall, 2006, cat. no. 26, p. 93, ill. p. 70
Véronique WIESINGER, Charlotte VAN LINGEN (under the direction of), Alberto Giacometti, Harderwijk : D'jonge Hond, 2008, cat. no. 97, ill. p. 137
Véronique WIESINGER (under the direction of), Giacometti, Sao Paulo : Cosac & Naify Ediçoes, 2012, ill. p. 371