Fondation Giacometti

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 this painting, the model sits rather far away, differing from most of Caroline’s portraits in which Giacometti only focuses on the bust or on the head. The wide margin of white canvas on the left and right gives this portrait a vertical and set back force that accompanies the figure of the model, that stretches from the thick legs to the tiny head. As is typical in the portraits from the Sixties, the most defined part of the portrait is the head; the rest of the body is less detailed beneath the shoulders, and the feet are barely sketched, lost in the drips of grey paint that outlines the floor. The attention to the space surrounding the model, still present in this painting in the few lines defining the studio, is very rare in the portraits from the Sixties. As rare as the use of red for the dress, a detail that makes it possible to date this painting with the others from the end of 1964/beginning of 1965, when Caroline sat with the same dress and in the same attitude, her hands joined. This painting seems not to have been exhibited in the artist’s lifetime.

No inscription

Annette GIACOMETTI
Succession Annette Giacometti
Fondation Alberto et Annette Giacometti

2006 Alberto Giacometti, Kamakura (Japan), The Museum of Modern Art, from June 3rd to July 30th 2006, no. II-34
2006 Alberto Giacometti, Kobe (Japan), Hyogo Prefectural Museum of Art, from August 8th to October 1st 2006, no. II-34
2006 Alberto Giacometti, Sakura (Japan), Kawamura Memorial Museum of Art, from October 10th to December 3rd 2006, no. II-34
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. 49
2008 Alberto Giacometti, Rotterdam (Netherlands), Kunsthal, from October 18th 2008 to February 8th 2009, no. 123
2010 Alberto Giacometti. Der Ursprung des Raumes, Wolfsbourg (Germany), Kunstmuseum Wolfsburg, from November 20th 2010 to March 6th 2011, no. 37
2011 Alberto Giacometti. Der Ursprung des Raumes, Salzbourg (Austria), Museum der Moderne Mönchsberg, from March 26th to July 3rd 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
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 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 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 Alberto Giacometti : From Life., Dublin (Ireland), National Gallery of Ireland, from April 9th to September 4th 2022
2024 Alberto Giacometti / Giorgio Morandi. Moments immobiles., Paris (France), Institut Giacometti, from November 15th 2024 to March 2nd 2025

Véronique WIESINGER, Toshio YAMANASHI (under the direction of), Alberto Giacometti, Tokyo : The Tokyo Shimbun, 2006, cat. no. II-34, p. 58, ill. p. 59
Véronique WIESINGER, Giacometti. La figure au défi, Paris : Découvertes Gallimard, 2007, ill. p. 77
Véronique WIESINGER (under the direction of), L'atelier d'Alberto Giacometti, Paris : Fondation Alberto et Annette Giacometti, 2007 / Paris : Musée national d'art moderne, Centre Georges Pompidou, 2007, cat. no. 49, p. 204, pl. 338, ill. p. 208
Véronique WIESINGER, Charlotte VAN LINGEN (under the direction of), Alberto Giacometti, Harderwijk : D'jonge Hond, 2008, cat. no. 123, ill. p. 157
Markus BRUDERLIN, Toni STOOSS (under the direction of), Alberto Giacometti. Der Ursprung des Raumes, Ostfildern : HATJE CANTZ VERLAG, 2010 / Wolfsbourg : Kunstmuseum Wolfsburg, 2010 / Salzbourg : Museum der Moderne Mönchsberg, 2010, p. 253, ill. p. 161
Markus BRUDERLIN, Toni STOOSS (under the direction of), Alberto Giacometti. The Origin of Space, Ostfildern : HATJE CANTZ VERLAG, 2010 / Wolfsburg : Kunstmuseum Wolfsburg, 2010, p. 253, ill. p. 161
Véronique WIESINGER (under the direction of), Giacometti, Sao Paulo : Cosac & Naify Ediçoes, 2012, ill. p. 177
Véronique WIESINGER (under the direction of), Alberto Giacometti. A Retrospective, Barcelona : Ediciones Poligrafa, 2012 / Malaga : Museo Picasso, 2012, ill. p. 201
Véronique WIESINGER (under the direction of), Alberto Giacometti. Una retrospectiva, Barcelona : Ediciones Poligrafa, 2012 / Malaga : Museo Picasso, 2012, ill. p. 201