Fondation Giacometti -  [Bruno]
AGD 20

[Bruno]

Date circa 1916

Medium Oil on cardboard

Dimensions 14,68 x 11,18 in.

Collection Fondation Giacometti, Paris

Description

This is a portrait of Bruno, Alberto’s little brother, made around 1916, when he was about nine years old. The last of Giovanni and Annette’s four children, Bruno was born on 24 August 1907. Employing a post-impressionist style, this painting is very similar to the children’s portraits painted by Giovanni Giacometti, Alberto’s father, and especially the portrait of Alberto that he painted in 1908 (when the child was the same age as Bruno in Alberto’s painting). Alberto seems to take up his father’s technique not by using that of the paintings that Giovanni was in the process of making (like Bruno’s portrait in 1916) but that of the paintings made a few years earlier that Alberto could see around him in the studio in Stampa. The preparatory pencil drawing is clearly visible under the painting. That is the case with other paintings from his youth, but using a pencil was soon to be replaced by drawing directly with a brush. This painting is neither dated nor signed by the artist and has never been exhibited in his lifetime.

Inscription

No inscription

Provenance

Annette GIACOMETTI
Succession Alberto et Annette Giacometti
Fondation Alberto et Annette Giacometti

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