Fondation Giacometti

Isaku Yanaihara (1918-1989) was a professor of philosophy in Japan, a specialist of the work of Sartre, Genet and Camus, whose book “L’Etranger” he translated into Japanese. He met Alberto Giacometti in Paris in 1955, and regularly sat for the artist, in 1956 and then during his summer stays in France in 1957, 1959, 1960 and 1961. In several texts, amongst which an article published in the magazine “Derrière le miroir” in 1961, he described those long sittings, the artist and the model trying to mutually exhaust each other. The work on Yanaihara’s portrait enabled Giacometti to push to the limit his search for “copying a head exactly as one sees it”. The fact that the model here poses in profile is an extremely rare occurrence in Giacometti’s work. The artist noticed that most of the portraits in art history are three-quarters or profile because of the extreme difficulty in painting a portrait full face. For the artist, the success of a frontal portrait was a greater challenge precisely because of its complexity. Giacometti admired the Byzantine or Coptic portraits for that very reason. In the paintings of the end of the Fifties, the interest of the artist for the relation between the model and the space that surrounds him gradually became weak, outstripped as it was by the still major attention given to the figure of the model and especially his face. The central part of the painting (the portrait) is much more detailed than the background, where the artist leaves small portions of canvas white. The space surrounding the model is quickly sketched with horizontal and oblique lines, barely initiated. Though they are sufficient to situate the portrait in the artist’s Parisian studio, their role seems to be above all to frame the model. This painting is not signed or dated and was never exhibited in the artist’s lifetime.

No inscription

Annette GIACOMETTI
Succession Annette Giacometti
Fondation Giacometti

1977 Alberto Giacometti. Plastiken. Gemälde. Zeichnungen, Duisburg (Germany), Wilhelm-Lehmbruck-Museum Duisburg, from September 17th to November 27th 1977, no. 70
1978 Alberto Giacometti, Saint-Paul-de-Vence (France), Fondation Marguerite et Aimé Maeght, from July 8th to September 30th 1978, no. 161
1992 Alberto Giacometti, Tampere (Finland), Sara Hildénin taidemuseo
1994 Alberto Giacometti. Skulpturer. Mälningar. Teckningar, Malmö (Sweden), Malmö Konsthall, from October 29th 1994 to January 22nd 1995
1998 Alberto Giacometti, Montréal (Canada), Musée des Beaux-Arts, from June 18th to October 18th 1998, no. 79
2004 Contre / Images, Nîmes (France), Carré d'art, Musée d'art contemporain de Nîmes, from June 3rd to September 26th 2004
2006 Alberto Giacometti, Kamakura (Japan), The Museum of Modern Art, from June 3rd to July 30th 2006, no. III-2
2006 Alberto Giacometti, Kobe (Japan), Hyogo Prefectural Museum of Art, from August 8th to October 1st 2006, no. III-2
2006 Alberto Giacometti, Sakura (Japan), Kawamura Memorial Museum of Art, from October 10th to December 3rd 2006, no. III-2
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. 27
2008 Alberto Giacometti, Rotterdam (Netherlands), Kunsthal, from October 18th 2008 to February 8th 2009, no. 114
2010 Alberto Giacometti. Der Ursprung des Raumes, Wolfsbourg (Germany), Kunstmuseum Wolfsburg, from November 20th 2010 to March 6th 2011, no. 32
2011 Alberto Giacometti. Der Ursprung des Raumes, Salzbourg (Austria), Museum der Moderne Mönchsberg, from March 26th to July 3rd 2011
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
2014 Giacometti, Milan (Italy), Galleria d'arte moderna, from October 8th 2014 to February 1st 2015
2016 Alberto Giacometti. Rétrospective, Rabat (Morocco), Musée Mohammed VI, from April 20th to September 4th 2016
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 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
2023 Annette en plus infiniment, Paris (France), Institut Giacometti, from July 11th to September 27th 2023

Alberto Giacometti. Plastiken. Gemälde. Zeichnungen, Duisburg : Wilhelm-Lehmbruck-Museum, 1977, cat. no. 70, p. 227, ill. p. 184
Jacques DUPIN, Alberto Giacometti, Saint-Paul-de-Vence : Fondation Marguerite et Aimé Maeght, 1978, p. 196, pl. 161, ill. p. 136
Alberto Giacometti, Tampere : Sara Hildénin taidemuseo, 1992, p. 230, ill. p. 161
Sune NORDGREN (under the direction of), Alberto Giacometti. Skulpturer. Mälningar. Teckningar, Stockholm : Raster Förlag, 1994, p. 49 et 219, ill. p. 49
Jean-Louis PRAT (under the direction of), Alberto Giacometti, Montréal : Musée des Beaux-Arts, 1998, cat. no. 79, p. 64, ill. p. 38
Françoise COHEN, Contre / Images, Arles : Actes Sud, 2004, p. 153, ill. p. 72
Véronique WIESINGER, Toshio YAMANASHI (under the direction of), Alberto Giacometti, Tokyo : The Tokyo Shimbun, 2006, cat. no. III-2, p. 65, ill. p. 65
Véronique WIESINGER, Giacometti. La figure au défi, Paris : Découvertes Gallimard, 2007, ill. p. 80
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. 27, p. 196, 216, pl. 326 et 347, ill. p. 199 et 215
Véronique WIESINGER, Charlotte VAN LINGEN (under the direction of), Alberto Giacometti, Harderwijk : D'jonge Hond, 2008, cat. no. 114, ill. p. 149
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. 252, ill. p. 146
Markus BRUDERLIN, Toni STOOSS (under the direction of), Alberto Giacometti. The Origin of Space, Ostfildern : HATJE CANTZ VERLAG, 2010 / Wolfsburg : Kunstmuseum Wolfsburg, 2010, p. 252, ill. p. 146
Véronique WIESINGER (under the direction of), Giacometti, Sao Paulo : Cosac & Naify Ediçoes, 2012, ill. p. 263