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 Parisian studio of the artist, where Yanaihara sat, is recognizable in the painting thanks to the oblique line of the wooden staircase leading to the mezzanine, without the artist giving us other anecdotic details of the place. The attention is focused on the model: enclosed in a painted reframing (a process much used by Giacometti), he occupies the lower part of the painting, which accentuates the depth of space. The model’s bust has clearly been worked on several times: the outlines of the first bust are visible under the model’s final silhouette. It appears that gradually, as the artist was working on this portrait, the size of the figure and particularly of the head was reduced. It is a phenomenon typical of the portraits painted by Giacometti and particularly for the series of portraits of Yanaihara, of which the artist said: “We used to work all day, and by the evening, it was a painting. And the more it worked out, the more he disappeared”. Giacometti probably worked for a while on that portrait: although it is signed and dated 1958, this painting is visible, in its previous states, on photographs taken by Yanaihara in 1957. In the same photographs, one also sees another painting, close to this one, with the same framing, probably abandoned after. Another old photograph shows this portrait completed without a date or a signature, which indicates those were appended by the artist at a later date, probably for an exhibition. Having entered a private collection before 1960, this painting was chosen by Giacometti to be exhibited during his big retrospective in London and in Humlebaek (Denmark) in 1965.

Signed and dated at the bottom right corner "Alberto Giacometti 1958"

Galerie Maeght
Private collection
Private collection
Private collection
Private collection
Private collection
Sale Christie's London (United Kingdom), June 24th, 2008, lot n ° 34

1963 Alberto Giacometti, Geneva (Switzerland), Galerie Jan Krugier et Cie, from May 30th to July 15th 1963, no. 12
1965 Alberto Giacometti. Sculpture Paintings Drawings 1913 1965, London (United Kingdom), Tate Gallery, from July 17th to August 30th 1965, no. 136
1965 Alberto Giacometti, Humlebæk (Denmark), Louisiana Museum for Moderne Kunst, from September 18th to October 24th 1965, no. 125
1968 Giacometti & Dubuffet, New York, NY (United States Of America), Sidney Janis Gallery, no. 22
1985 Alberto Giacometti, New York, NY (United States Of America), Sidney Janis Gallery, from September 17th to November 2nd 1985, no. 12
1988 Alberto Giacometti 1901-1966, Washington, D.C. (United States Of America), Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, from September 15th to November 13th 1988, no. 86
1988 Alberto Giacometti 1901-1966, San Francisco, CA (United States Of America), San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, from December 15th 1988 to February 5th 1989, no. 86
2009 The European Fine Art Fair (TEFAF), Maastricht (Netherlands), MECC, from 13th to March 22nd 2009
2010 The European Fine Art Fair (TEFAF), Maastricht (Netherlands), MECC, from 12th to March 21st 2010

Riga, Cernusco Lombardo : Hestia edizioni, no. 1, 1991, ill. p. 154
Marco BELPOLITI, Elio GRAZIOLI (under the direction of), in Riga, Milan : Marcos y Marcos, no. 11, 1996, ill. p. 279
Alberto GIACOMETTI, in Louisiana Revy, Humlebæk : Editions Louisiana, no. 1, september 1965, cat. no. 125, ill. p. 35
Alberto Giacometti (carton d'invitation), Geneva : Galerie Jan Krugier et Cie, 1963, cat. no. 12
David SYLVESTER, Alberto Giacometti. Sculpture. Paintings. Drawings 1913 1965, London : Arts Council of Great Britain, 1965, cat. no. 136, pl. 55
Giacometti & Dubuffet, New York, NY : Sidney Janis Gallery, 1968, cat. no. 22, pl. 22
Reinhold HOHL, Alberto Giacometti, New York, NY : Harry N. Abrams, Inc., 1971, p. 165, ill. p. 165
Alberto Giacometti, New York, NY : Sidney Janis Gallery, 1985, cat. no. 12, pl. 12
Valerie J. FLETCHER (under the direction of), Alberto Giacometti. 1901-1966, Washington, D.C. : Smithsonian Institution Press, 1988, cat. no. 86, p. 206, pl. 86, ill. p. 207
Yves BONNEFOY, Alberto Giacometti. Biographie d'une oeuvre, Paris : Flammarion, 1991, cat. no. 436, p. 453, ill. p. 453
Impressionist / Modern Evening Sale, London : Christie's, 2008, lot no. 34, p. 134-139
Yves BONNEFOY, Alberto Giacometti. Biographie d'une oeuvre, Paris : Flammarion, 2012, cat. no. 436, p. 453, ill. p. 453