Caroline in a Red Dress
Date circa 1964 - 1965
Medium Oil on canvas
Dimensions 36,33 x 25,74 in.
Collection Fondation Giacometti, Paris
Caroline is the pseudonym of a woman of easy virtue Giacometti met in a bar in Montparnasse in 1958. From 1960 she started to sit for him, and continued sitting regularly until the artist’s death. Giacometti painted at least thirty portraits of Caroline and made a bust of her in 1961. Pursuing the research initiated with the portraits of Yanaihara a few years before, the series of portraits of Caroline represents the ultimate result of an intense work on the portrait and the representation of the face. In the Sixties, it was rare for Giacometti to use bright colours like the red of the dress in which Caroline sat at the end of 1964/the beginning of 1965 for at least five portraits. However the colour remained a secondary thought for the artist who was more concentrated on the features that outline the face, framed at the knees. The face is drawn with very dark black strokes and takes even more intensity and density than the rest of the portrait, while the context of the studio is almost not described at all, in an undefined and not homogeneous background of ochre colour. The head has been worked on for a long time, as was often the case: the paint is very thick in that zone of the painting, and allows the appearance of the first strokes erased by the artist as he went along. This painting is not dated or signed, but it was among the eight portraits of Caroline exhibited in the London and Humlebaek retrospective in 1965 with the title: “Caroline in a red dress” and dated 1965.
No inscription
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. 154
1965 Alberto Giacometti, Humlebæk (Denmark), Louisiana Museum for Moderne Kunst, from September 18th to October 24th 1965, no. 143
1969 Alberto Giacometti, Paris (France), Orangerie des Tuileries, from October 15th 1969 to January 12th 1970, no. 200
1991 Alberto Giacometti. Sculptures. Peintures. Dessins, Paris (France), Musée d'Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris, from November 30th 1991 to March 15th 1992, no. 268
1994 Alberto Giacometti. Skulpturer. Mälningar. Teckningar, Malmö (Sweden), Malmö Konsthall, from October 29th 1994 to January 22nd 1995
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 Alberto Giacometti - Bror Hjorth, Stockholm (Sweden), Liljevalchs Konsthall, from September 23rd 2006 to January 7th 2007, no. 45
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. 51
2008 Die Skulpturen der Maler, Baden Baden (Germany), Museum Frieder Burda, from July 5th to October 26th 2008, no. 110
2008 Isabel and Other Intimate Strangers. Portraits by Alberto Giacometti and Francis Bacon, New York, NY (United States Of America), Gagosian Gallery, from November 3rd to December 13th 2008
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, 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
2013 Portraits. Collections du Centre Pompidou, Birmingham, AL (United States Of America), Birmingham Museum of Art
2013 Portraits. Collections du Centre Pompidou, Minneapolis, MN (United States Of America), Minneapolis Institute of Arts, from September 29th 2013 to January 5th 2014
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
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
2020 Alberto Giacometti. Tête à tête., Stockholm (Sweden), Moderna Museet, from October 10th 2020 to May 30th 2021
2021 Alberto Giacometti. Une rétrospective. Le réel merveilleux., MONACO (Monaco), Grimaldi Forum Monaco, from July 3rd to August 29th 2021
2022 Sophie Ristelhueber, Paris (France), Institut Giacometti, from September 27th to November 30th 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
2024 Ne pas parler de sculptures peintes., Paris (France), Institut Giacometti, from July 2nd to November 3rd 2024
2026 Barbican Center 3 : Giacometti - Lynda Benglis, London (United Kingdom), Barbican Centre, from February 11th to May 31st 2026
Apollo, London, june 2009, p. 52, pl. 9, ill. p. 52
Alberto GIACOMETTI, in Louisiana Revy, Humlebæk : Editions Louisiana, no. 1, september 1965, cat. no. 143
David SYLVESTER, Alberto Giacometti. Sculpture. Paintings. Drawings 1913 1965, London : Arts Council of Great Britain, 1965, cat. no. 154
Alberto Giacometti, Orangerie des Tuileries, Paris : Ministère d'Etat des Affaires culturelles. RMN, 1969, p. 158, ill. p. 123
Suzanne PAGE (under the direction of), Alberto Giacometti. Sculptures. Peintures. Dessins, Paris : Paris-Musées, 1991, cat. no. 268, p. 364-365, ill. p. 365
Yves BONNEFOY, Alberto Giacometti. Biographie d'une oeuvre, Paris : Flammarion, 1991, p. 460, pl. 447, ill. p. 461
Sune NORDGREN (under the direction of), Alberto Giacometti. Skulpturer. Mälningar. Teckningar, Stockholm : Raster Förlag, 1994, p. 54 et 220, ill. p. 54
Steven NASH, The Women of Giacometti, New York, NY : Pace Wildenstein, 2005, p. 93, ill. p. 89
Véronique WIESINGER, Bo NILSSON, Alberto Giacometti. Bror Hjorth, Stockholm : Liljevalchs Konsthall, 2006, p. 93, ill. p. 87
Véronique WIESINGER, Bo NILSSON, Alberto Giacometti. Partial reprint with corrections, Stockholm : Liljevalchs Konsthall, 2006, cat. no. 45, p. 94, ill. p. 88
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. 51, p. 204, pl. 339, ill. p. 208
Jean-Louis PRAT, Les Peintres-Sculpteurs, Baden Baden : Museum Frieder Burda, 2008, cat. no. 110, p. 187, ill. p. 187
Véronique WIESINGER, Valentina CASTELLANI, John GOOD, Andrea CRANE (under the direction of), Alberto Giacometti. Francis Bacon, New York, NY : Gagosian Gallery, 2008, p. 163 & 257, ill. p. 163 & 257
Christopher LYON, Nancy Spero. The Work, Munich, Berlin, Londres, New York : Prestel Verlag, 2010, p. 51, ill. p. 51
Véronique WIESINGER (under the direction of), Giacometti, Sao Paulo : Cosac & Naify Ediçoes, 2012, ill. p. 176
Yves BONNEFOY, Alberto Giacometti. Biographie d'une oeuvre, Paris : Flammarion, 2012, p. 460, pl. 447, ill. p. 461