Fondation Giacometti

Annetta Giacometti, Alberto's mother (1871-1964), was the model for numerous works by Giacometti: from drawings made in his youth – where she is represented alone or with other members of the family – to paintings and sculptures from the artist's more mature period. After spending the war years in Geneva, Annetta returned to the family home in Stampa that Alberto visited every summer on his return from Paris. It was here, or in the area surrounding Maloja, that Giacometti made most of his mother's portraits. Though one of Annetta's most famous portraits dates from 1937, it is mainly from the end of the forties that Giacometti began to regularly use his mother as a model.
On this painting from 1947, signed by the artist at the bottom right, Annetta is represented in bust form, her gaze fixed straight ahead. The distance between the model and the artist is rather close. A brown background without details characterizes the space behind the figure. The brushstrokes seem to cover a previous bust that one can discern at the lower edge of the canvas, on the left of the signature.
Exhibited in the artist's lifetime in 1963 in Washington, the painting has now entered the collection of the Alberto Giacometti-Stiftung in Zurich.

Signed with a paintbrush at the bottom right corner "Alberto Giacometti"

Pierre Matisse Gallery
Private collection
Private collection
Sale Christie's New York New York, NY, November 2nd, 2005, lot n ° 405
Private collection
Private collection

1963 Alberto Giacometti. A loan exhibition, Washington, D.C (United States Of America), The Phillips Collection, from February 2nd to March 4th 1963, no. 43
2009 Alberto Giacometti. Rétrospective, Geneva (Switzerland), Musée Rath, from November 5th 2009 to February 21st 2010
2014 Alberto Giacometti, Pionnier du Modernisme, Vienne (Austria), Leopold Museum, from October 17th 2014 to January 26th 2015

Alberto Giacometti. A loan exhibition, Washington, D.C : The Phillips Collection, 1963, cat. no. 43
Kunsthaus Zürich. Zürcher Kunstgesellschaft. Jahresbericht 2005, Zurich : Zürcher Kunstgesellschaft, Kunsthaus Zürich, 2005, pl. 14
Impressionist and Modern Art. Day Sale, New York, NY : Christie's New York, 2005, lot no. 405
Kunsthaus Zürich. Gesamtkatalog der Gamälde und Skulpturen, Ostfildern : HATJE CANTZ VERLAG, 2007 / Zurich : Zürcher Kunstgesellschaft, 2007, p. 488, ill. p. 488
Nadia SCHNEIDER, Alberto Giacometti, Zurich : JRP Ringier, 2009 / Geneva : Musée Rath, 2009, p. 264, ill. p. 87
Nadia SCHNEIDER, Alberto Giacometti, Zurich : JRP Ringier, 2009 / Geneva : Musée Rath, 2009, p. 264, ill. p. 87
Christian KLEMM, Die Sammlung Wächst, Zurich : Kunsthaus Zürich, 2011 / Zurich : Scheidegger & Spiess, 2011, ill. p. 48
Alberto Giacometti, Pionier der Modern, Vienne : Leopold Museum, 2014, p. 120, ill. p. 120