Fondation Giacometti

This work, though made previous to Giacometti’s official adherence to surrealism, shows the influence that the movement already had on the young artist, who met André Masson, Georges-Henri Rivière and the interior designer Jean-Michel Frank in 1929, who counted among his sponsors the Noailles. This work, whose poetic title evokes the interests of the surrealists for women, eroticism and dreams, was published for the first time in 1929 by Michel Leiris in Georges Bataille’s magazine “Documents”. That year, Giacometti signed a contract with the gallery owner Pierre Loeb that enabled him to have this sculpture cast in bronze. It is the first of Giacometti’s works to be cast at the Rudier foundry. Like the women in the shape of thin plates but in a more complex fashion, this work plays on hollows and solids, combined with planes. The woman’s head in the shape of a spoon rests on a double flat wave that demarcates a floating in-between pierced three times, giving the piece a subtly erotic character. The flat base like a tablet, recurrent in Giacometti’s pieces of the time, makes it an object impossible to classify, a hybrid between sculpture and decorative arts. In that feature one also perceives the influence of primitive art and particularly African sculptures. In 1959, the bronze edition of the work was carried out. This bronze figured in the London retrospective of the artist in 1965.

Signature engraved on the back of the base, left "Alberto Giacometti"

Annette GIACOMETTI
Succession Annette Giacometti
Fondation Giacometti

1965 Alberto Giacometti. Sculpture Paintings Drawings 1913 1965, London (United Kingdom), Tate Gallery, from July 17th to August 30th 1965, no. 11
1969 Alberto Giacometti, Paris (France), Orangerie des Tuileries, from October 15th 1969 to January 12th 1970, no. 17
1994 Alberto Giacometti. Skulpturer. Mälningar. Teckningar, Malmö (Sweden), Malmö Konsthall, from October 29th 1994 to January 22nd 1995
1998 XXIV Bienal de Sao Paulo, Sao Paulo (Brazil), Fundação Bienal de São Paulo, from October 3rd to December 13th 1998
2005 Alberto Giacometti au donjon de Vez, Vez (France), Donjon de Vez, from June 18th to October 2nd 2005
2005 The Women of Giacometti, New York, NY (United States Of America), Pace Wildenstein, from October 28th to December 3rd 2005
2006 The Women of Giacometti, Dallas, TX (United States Of America), Nasher Sculpture Center, from January 14th to April 9th 2006
2006 The Enemy Within. Georges Bataille, Surrealism and the magazine DOCUMENTS, London (United Kingdom), Hayward Gallery, from May 11th to July 30th 2006
2007 L'atelier d'Alberto Giacometti, Paris (France), Musée national d'art moderne, Centre Georges Pompidou, from October 15th 2007 to February 11th 2008, no. 91
2008 Alberto Giacometti, Rotterdam (Netherlands), Kunsthal, from October 18th 2008 to February 8th 2009, no. 34
2009 Dada e surrealismo riscoperti, Rome (Italy), Complesso del Vittoriano, from October 2nd 2009 to February 7th 2010
2011 Surreal Objects. Three-Dimensional Works from Dali to Man Ray, Francfort (Germany), Schirn Kunsthalle Frankfurt, from February 11th to May 29th 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
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
2016 Picasso-Giacomettii, Paris (France), Musée National Picasso, from October 4th 2016 to February 5th 2017
2017 Picasso-Giacometti at Doha, Doha (Qatar), Fire Station, from February 22nd to May 21st 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 Sade / Giacometti, Cruels Objets du Désir, Paris, Institut Giacometti, from November 21st 2019 to February 16th 2020
2020 Alberto Giacometti. Tête à tête., Stockholm (Sweden), Moderna Museet, from October 10th 2020 to May 30th 2021
2021 Picasso-Giacometti Museum Voorlinden, Wassenaar (Netherlands), Museum Voorlinden, from October 16th 2021 to February 13th 2022
2022 Giacometti - Dali. Jardins de rêves, Paris, Institut Giacometti, from December 13th 2022 to April 9th 2023
2023 Alberto Giacometti: Beginning, again., Tel Aviv (Israel), Tel Aviv Museum of Art, from April 30th to October 7th 2023

Nimrod GOLAN, "What does Giacometti See ? Becoming a Selfobject in the Artist's Work", in The Israël Annual of Psychoanalysis, Jerusalem : The Hebrew University Magnes Press, 2010, ill. p. 109
Jean LEYMARIE (under the direction of), Alberto Giacometti, Paris : Ministère d'Etat des Affaires culturelles. RMN, 1969, cat. no. 17, p. 148
Sune NORDGREN (under the direction of), Alberto Giacometti. Skulpturer. Mälningar. Teckningar, Stockholm : Raster Förlag, 1994, p. 75 et 220, ill. p. 75
Paulo HERKENHOFF, Adriano PEDROSA, XXIV Bienal de São Paulo, Sao Paulo : Fundação Bienal de São Paulo, 1998, ill. p. 279
Steven NASH, The Women of Giacometti, New York, NY : Pace Wildenstein, 2005, p. 90, ill. p. 40
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. 18, ill. p. 19
Véronique WIESINGER (under the direction of), L'atelier d'Alberto Giacometti, Paris : Fondation Giacometti, 2007 / Paris : Musée national d'art moderne, Centre Georges Pompidou, 2007, cat. no. 91, p. 113, pl. 109, ill. p. 98
Véronique WIESINGER, Charlotte VAN LINGEN (under the direction of), Alberto Giacometti, Harderwijk : D'jonge Hond, 2008, cat. no. 34, ill. p. 95
Ingrid PFEIFFER, Max HOLLEIN, Surreal Objects, Ostfildern : HATJE CANTZ VERLAG, 2011 / Francfort : Schirn Kunsthalle Frankfurt, 2011, p. 98 & 238 , pl. 1, ill. p. 98 & 238
Ingrid PFEIFFER, Max HOLLEIN, Surreale Dinge, Ostfildern : HATJE CANTZ VERLAG, 2011 / Frankfort : Schirn Kunsthalle Frankfurt, 2011, p. 98 & 238 , pl. 1, ill. p. 98 & 238
Véronique WIESINGER (under the direction of), Giacometti, Sao Paulo : Cosac & Naify Ediçoes, 2012, ill. p. 85
Véronique WIESINGER (under the direction of), Alberto Giacometti. A Retrospective, Barcelona : Ediciones Poligrafa, 2012 / Malaga : Museo Picasso, 2012, ill. p. 42
Véronique WIESINGER (under the direction of), Alberto Giacometti. Una retrospectiva, Barcelona : Ediciones Poligrafa, 2012 / Malaga : Museo Picasso, 2012, ill. p. 42