The Mountain
Date circa 1930
Medium Oil on canvas
Dimensions 23,66 x 19,84 in.
Collection Fondation Giacometti, Paris
Giacometti began to draw and paint the mountains of Val Bregaglia, his native region in the canton of Grisons, from his childhood. He had the example of the paintings of other Swiss artists who had painted the same landscapes: first his father Giovanni, then Cuno Amiet (friend of Giovanni and Alberto’s godfather) and even Ferdinand Hodler, godfather to Alberto’s little brother Bruno. The sky in this painting is done in crossed strokes, in the post-impressionist style, with the attention brought to the colour and light that prevail in all the landscape paintings that Giacometti produced in his youth, under the influence of his father and Hodler. However, one finds in this painting a new awareness to formal construction: in the way he treated the volumes of the mountain, one recognizes the first influences of a Cezannian decomposition of the subject, and the discourse of Cezanne on the “convexity” of the face of the mountain Sainte-Victoire published by Joachim Gasquet in Paris in 1921. That book was avidly commented upon by Giacometti father and son in 1924, at the time Alberto discovered cubism in Paris. This painting has therefore probably been made after Giacometti’s first stay in Paris in 1922. In a drawing dating from the same period, one recognizes the same mountain in winter – with that same glacier – treated, as in this painting, as a multi-faceted structure. This painting was exhibited in the artist’s lifetime during the retrospective at the Kunsthaus in Zürich in 1962, where it is dated in the catalogue as 1930.
No inscription
Annette GIACOMETTI
Succession Annette Giacometti
Fondation Alberto et Annette Giacometti
1962 Alberto Giacometti, Zurich (Switzerland), Kunsthaus Zürich, from December 2nd 1962 to January 6th 1963, no. 183a
2006 Alberto Giacometti - Bror Hjorth, Stockholm (Sweden), Liljevalchs Konsthall, from September 23rd 2006 to January 7th 2007, no. 35
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. 13
2008 Cézanne & Giacometti. Paths of doubt, Humlebæk (Denmark), Louisiana Museum for Moderne Kunst, from February 15th to June 29th 2008, no. 90
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
2012 Alberto Giacometti. Colección de la Fundación Alberto y Annette Giacometti,París, Buenos Aires (Argentina), Fundación PROA, from October 13th 2012 to January 9th 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
2017 Derain, Balthus, Giacometti, Paris (France), Musée d'Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris, from June 1st to October 29th 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
2021 Giacometti-Segantini-Amiet-Hodler, La Montagne fertile., Evian (France), Palais Lumière, from February 27th to May 30th 2021
2021 Alberto Giacometti. Une rétrospective. Le réel merveilleux., MONACO (Monaco), Grimaldi Forum Monaco, from July 3rd to August 29th 2021
Alberto Giacometti, Zurich : Kunsthaus, 1962, cat. no. 183 a
Véronique WIESINGER, Bo NILSSON, Alberto Giacometti. Bror Hjorth, Stockholm : Liljevalchs Konsthall, 2006, p. 92, ill. p. 16
Véronique WIESINGER, Bo NILSSON, Alberto Giacometti. Partial reprint with corrections, Stockholm : Liljevalchs Konsthall, 2006, cat. no. 35, p. 93, ill. p. 16
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. 13, p. 214, 219, pl. 293, 352 et 353, ill. p. 176 et 218
Felix A. BAUMANN-BRUCKNER, Poul Erik TOJNER (under the direction of), Cézanne & Giacometti. Paths of Doubt, Ostfildern : HATJE CANTZ VERLAG, 2008, cat. no. 90, p. 350, ill. p. 113
Véronique WIESINGER (under the direction of), Giacometti, Sao Paulo : Cosac & Naify Ediçoes, 2012, ill. p. 38
Véronique WIESINGER (under the direction of), Alberto Giacometti. A Retrospective, Barcelona : Ediciones Poligrafa, 2012 / Malaga : Museo Picasso, 2012, ill. p. 96
Véronique WIESINGER (under the direction of), Alberto Giacometti. Una retrospectiva, Barcelona : Ediciones Poligrafa, 2012 / Malaga : Museo Picasso, 2012, ill. p. 96