Fondation Giacometti

Ottilia was Alberto’s younger sister, born in 1904 and deceased in 1937 while giving birth to her son Silvio Berthoud. The wooden planks in the background evoke the interior of the family houses in Stampa and Maloja. That same background is also found in other portraits done in those houses, in which Giacometti used to spend part of the summer, even after he settled in Paris in 1922. Though the painting is neither signed nor dated, the hairstyle and age of the model, as well as the style of the painting, lead us to date this painting from around the Thirties. During that period, Giacometti had almost stopped painting in his Parisian studio, but he still used to devote himself to it during his stays in Stampa and Maloja, particularly, as in this case, for portraits of his relatives. The Parisian experience is however very present in this painting, on which one notices a sculptural treatment of the shapes and a geometric decomposition of the face and the body of the model that are reminiscent of the drawings made in the Twenties in the Académie de la Grande Chaumière, near Bourdelle. The rough aspect of the surface evokes the sculpted portraits of the same period. The space of the canvas is wholly taken up by the head of the model in the foreground before the partition wall, even though the corner of the furniture on the left creates the illusion of depth. This painting is not dated nor signed by the artist and was never exhibited in the artist’s lifetime.

No inscription

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

2006 Alberto Giacometti - Bror Hjorth, Stockholm (Sweden), Liljevalchs Konsthall, from September 23rd 2006 to January 7th 2007, no. 36
2012 Giacometti, Memory and Presence, Charlotte, NC (United States Of America), Bechtler Museum of Modern Art, from August 31st 2012 to January 21st 2013
2015 Alberto Giacometti, Istanbul, Tepebasi-Beyoglu-Istanbul, PERA MUSEUM, from February 10th to April 26th 2015
2016 Alberto Giacometti. Rétrospective, Rabat (Morocco), Musée Mohammed VI, from April 20th to September 4th 2016
2019 Teresa Hubbard / Alexander Birchler Flora, Paris, Institut Giacometti, from April 5th to June 9th 2019
2020 Ottilia Giacometti, Zurich (Switzerland), Kunsthaus Zürich, from February 7th to July 19th 2020
2022 Alberto Giacometti : From Life., Dublin (Ireland), National Gallery of Ireland, from April 9th to September 4th 2022

Véronique WIESINGER, Bo NILSSON, Alberto Giacometti. Bror Hjorth, Stockholm : Liljevalchs Konsthall, 2006, p. 92, ill. p. 40
Véronique WIESINGER, Bo NILSSON, Alberto Giacometti. Partial reprint with corrections, Stockholm : Liljevalchs Konsthall, 2006, cat. no. 36, p. 93, ill. p. 41