Fondation Giacometti

The view from his studio in Stampa has often been depicted by Alberto Giacometti. “This landscape,” wrote Giacometti in 1952, “is the one I always have under my eyes in front of my studio door. (…) [it]would last me for months. (…) I cannot see when I could go further than the one I see from my window or in front of my door.” The landscape depicted here is exactly what the artist saw through the glazed door of his studio. That door, that one can easily recognize in the foreground, functions like the framing of the image already reframed in the canvas by big black strokes. Unlike the open landscapes of his youth, Giacometti chose here an intimate and circumscribed space that he explored in depth. This research is conveyed on the canvas by an insistent drawing that seems to create several layers right up to the last white strokes on the surface, which stand out on the very dark base. Giacometti explained the lack of colour in his painting by the impossibility to “concentrate at the same time on the construction and on the colour”. But he must also have had in mind Cézanne’s words: “Until one has painted a grey, one is not a painter”. In 1958, he declared to Gotthard Jedlicka: “If I see everything in grey and in that grey the multitude of all the colours I feel and would like to display, why then use another colour?” Giacometti wrote that he had painted the same landscape in all the seasons of the year, under different lights, but always in the same dark tones, the attention to the structure of the image taking over the light and the colour. We can account for at least six paintings made in 1952 in which the same theme is treated with the same style and in the same tones. This painting was exhibited in the artist’s lifetime during the retrospectives in London and in Humlebaek in 1965, under the title “Dark Landscape”, and the date 1952.

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. 116
1965 Alberto Giacometti, Humlebæk (Denmark), Louisiana Museum for Moderne Kunst, from September 18th to October 24th 1965, no. 108
1977 Alberto Giacometti. Plastiken. Gemälde. Zeichnungen, Duisburg (Germany), Wilhelm-Lehmbruck-Museum Duisburg, from September 17th to November 27th 1977, no. 66
1994 Alberto Giacometti. Skulpturer. Mälningar. Teckningar, Malmö (Sweden), Malmö Konsthall, from October 29th 1994 to January 22nd 1995
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. 24
2008 Alberto Giacometti, Rotterdam (Netherlands), Kunsthal, from October 18th 2008 to February 8th 2009, no. 136
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
2015 Alberto Giacometti au Fonds Hélène et Edouard Leclerc, Landerneau (France), Fonds Hélène & Edouard Leclerc, from June 14th to October 25th 2015
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
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
2021 Picasso-Giacometti Museum Voorlinden, Wassenaar (Netherlands), Museum Voorlinden, from October 16th 2021 to February 13th 2022
2022 Giacometti et le paysage, Paris, Institut Giacometti, from June 22nd to September 18th 2022
2022 Sophie Ristelhueber, Paris, 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

Alberto GIACOMETTI, in Louisiana Revy, Humlebæk : Editions Louisiana, no. 1, september 1965
David SYLVESTER, Alberto Giacometti. Sculpture. Paintings. Drawings 1913 1965, London : Arts Council of Great Britain, 1965, cat. no. 116
Alberto Giacometti. Plastiken. Gemälde. Zeichnungen, Duisburg : Wilhelm-Lehmbruck-Museum, 1977, cat. no. 66, p. 227, ill. p. 179
Sune NORDGREN (under the direction of), Alberto Giacometti. Skulpturer. Mälningar. Teckningar, Stockholm : Raster Förlag, 1994, p. 47 et 219, ill. p. 47
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. 24, p. 188, pl. 323, ill. p. 197
Hisashi OKUYAMA, à, Cherbourg-Octeville : Editions Isoète, 2008
Véronique WIESINGER, Charlotte VAN LINGEN (under the direction of), Alberto Giacometti, Harderwijk : D'jonge Hond, 2008, cat. no. 136, ill. p. 166
Véronique WIESINGER (under the direction of), Giacometti in Switzerland, Geneva : Gagosian Gallery, 2010, p. 13, pl. 3, ill. p. 13
Véronique WIESINGER (under the direction of), Giacometti, Sao Paulo : Cosac & Naify Ediçoes, 2012, ill. p. 198
Véronique WIESINGER (under the direction of), Alberto Giacometti. A Retrospective, Barcelona : Ediciones Poligrafa, 2012 / Malaga : Museo Picasso, 2012, ill. p. 37, 221
Véronique WIESINGER (under the direction of), Alberto Giacometti. Una retrospectiva, Barcelona : Ediciones Poligrafa, 2012 / Malaga : Museo Picasso, 2012, ill. p. 37, 221