Fondation Giacometti

Giacometti worked on this composition from 1949, at the same time as he was working on the “Cage”, with which it shares some common points in the device of a small turntable and in the setting of the subject including the furniture on which it rests. Contrary to the “Cage”, the “Four figurines” were not extracted from the studio, but were inspired by a memory, a vision that the artist had in a brothel that had closed its doors in 1946, according to a description he made to Pierre Matisse in 1950: “Several nude women seen at the Sphinx, while I was seated at the end of the room. The distance which separated us, the polished floor, seemed insurmountable in spite of my desire to cross it and impressed me as much as the women.” In the first version, exhibited in painted bronze at the Pierre Matisse Gallery in 1950, the female figures were taller and more slender, the parallelepiped that takes up the flight of perspective of the parquet is painted in a gold colour. In 1955 an accident happened to the model of the figurines, that prevented the complete casting of number 5/6 and interrupted the edition. The piece was reworked by Giacometti for the opening of the Fondation Maeght in 1964 and his retrospectives in 1965, in London especially. Taking up the old pedestal, he created new figurines by accentuating their small size, in three new versions. One in painted plaster, exhibited in London was never cast; the other two, called by the artist’s widow versions A and B were handed to the Susse foundry in 1965 and delivered after the artist’s death.

Alberto GIACOMETTI
Succession Alberto Giacometti
Annette GIACOMETTI
Succession Annette Giacometti
Fondation Giacometti

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. 171
2010 Alberto Giacometti. Der Ursprung des Raumes, Wolfsbourg (Germany), Kunstmuseum Wolfsburg, from November 20th 2010 to March 6th 2011, no. 16
2011 Alberto Giacometti. Der Ursprung des Raumes, Salzbourg (Austria), Museum der Moderne Mönchsberg, from March 26th to July 3rd 2011
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
2014 Giacometti, Milan (Italy), Galleria d'arte moderna, from October 8th 2014 to February 1st 2015
2015 Alberto Giacometti au Fonds Hélène et Edouard Leclerc, Landerneau (France), Fonds Hélène & Edouard Leclerc, from June 14th to October 25th 2015
2016 Alberto Giacometti retrospective at Yuz Museum, Shanghai (China), The Shanghai Yuz Museum, from March 22nd to July 31st 2016
2017 Susbtance and shadow. Alberto Giacometti sculptures and their photographs by Peter Lindbergh, London (United Kingdom), Gagosian Gallery, from May 18th to July 22nd 2017
2018 L’atelier d’Alberto Giacometti vu par Jean Genet, Paris, Institut Giacometti, from June 21st to September 16th 2018
2018 Giacometti Restrospective Bilbao, Bilbao (Spain), Guggenheim Museum, from October 19th 2018 to February 24th 2019
2019 Giacometti - Rodin (Gianadda), Martigny (Switzerland), Fondation Pierre Gianadda, from June 27th to November 24th 2019
2020 Rodin - Giacometti, Madrid (Spain), Fundación Mapfre, from February 6th to August 23rd 2020
2021 Alberto Giacometti. Une rétrospective. Le réel merveilleux., MONACO (Monaco), Grimaldi Forum Monaco, from July 3rd to August 29th 2021
2023 Alberto Giacometti: Beginning, again., Tel Aviv (Israel), Tel Aviv Museum of Art, from April 30th to October 7th 2023
2024 Alberto Giacometti – What Meets the Eye., Copenhague (Denmark), Statens Museum for Kunst, from February 10th to May 20th 2024

"Giacometti en Buenos Aires", in La Nacion, Buenos Aires, october 12th, 2012, ill. p. 5
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. 171, pl. 513, ill. p. 371
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. 122 & 250, ill. p. 123
Markus BRUDERLIN, Toni STOOSS (under the direction of), Alberto Giacometti. The Origin of Space, Ostfildern : HATJE CANTZ VERLAG, 2010 / Wolfsburg : Kunstmuseum Wolfsburg, 2010, p. 122 & 250, ill. p. 123
SARTRE, Alberto Giacometti, Sao Paulo : Editora WMF Martins Fontes Ltda, 2012, ill. p. 42
Véronique WIESINGER (under the direction of), Giacometti, Sao Paulo : Cosac & Naify Ediçoes, 2012, ill. p. 113
Véronique WIESINGER (under the direction of), Alberto Giacometti. A Retrospective, Barcelona : Ediciones Poligrafa, 2012 / Malaga : Museo Picasso, 2012, ill. p. 31, 227
Véronique WIESINGER (under the direction of), Alberto Giacometti. Una retrospectiva, Barcelona : Ediciones Poligrafa, 2012 / Malaga : Museo Picasso, 2012, ill. p. 31, 227