Fondation Giacometti

Giorgio Soavi, an Italian poet and novelist (1923-2008), met Giacometti in November 1962 during a dinner at a mutual friend’s home in Paris. He visited his studios in Stampa (Canton of Grisons, Switzerland) and in Paris in the Sixties, and in November 1963 sat in Stampa for two paintings. One of the two was dedicated in 1965 and offered by Giacometti to his model, while this one remained in the artist’s studio. By comparison with the other portraits with very elaborate and dense faces that Giacometti made in his last years, this one seems to have been made more quickly and although the face is very worked on, one does not find here the insistent layers of the Parisian portraits – of Caroline, for example – made in the same period. The grey of the face is lightened by the red and the ochre of the jacket that contribute to the luminosity of this portrait. But it is above all the canvas left completely bare that gives it a particular light, wholly typical of the paintings made in Stampa. This light is enhanced by the coarse-grained material of the canvas that captures the light, and accentuates the relief of the head that springs up in the centre. Giacometti was known for according great attention to the distance between him and his model during the sittings, and Giorgio Soavi himself testified (in an article published in 2005) to the marks present on the wooden floor of the studio to always keep the same distance from one sitting to the next. But if Giacometti usually adjusted those proportions by drawing a frame around the portrait, here the bust is perfectly fitted into the dimensions of the painting. Not signed or dated by the artist, this painting was never exhibited in his lifetime.

No inscription

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

2005 Alberto Giacometti. Percorsi lombardi, Sondrio (Italy), Museo Valtellinese di Storia e Arte, from January 20th to April 22nd 2005, no. 15
2010 Giacometti in Switzerland, Geneva (Switzerland), Gagosian Gallery, from November 18th 2010 to March 5th 2011
2012 Giacometti, Memory and Presence, Charlotte, NC (United States Of America), Bechtler Museum of Modern Art, from August 31st 2012 to January 21st 2013
2014 Giacometti, Milan (Italy), Galleria d'arte moderna, from October 8th 2014 to February 1st 2015
2015 Alberto Giacometti au Fonds Hélène et Edouard Leclerc, Landerneau (France), Fonds Hélène & Edouard Leclerc, from June 14th to October 25th 2015
2017 Alberto Giacometti, L'Oeuvre ultime., Nice (France), Espace culturel départemental du port de Nice, from June 23rd to October 15th 2017
2017 Alberto Giacometti after the models., Séoul (South Korea), Seoul Arts Center, from December 21st 2017 to April 15th 2018
2026 Alberto Giacometti - Minsheng Art Museum, Shanghai (China), Shanghai Minsheng Art Museum, from July 16th to December 6th 2026

Casimiro DI CRESCENZO, Franco MONTEFORTE, Alberto Giacometti. Percorsi Lombardi, Sondrio : Fondazione Gruppo Credito Valtellinese, 2005, p. 81-85, 415, pl. 15, ill. p. 177
Véronique WIESINGER (under the direction of), Giacometti in Switzerland, Geneva : Gagosian Gallery, 2010, p. 70 & 91, ill. p. 71