Fondation Giacometti

On the front of this pen-and-ink drawing two stonewalls are depicted whose outlines are retraced and rectangular stones hatched, with an opening on the right side through a gate made of long vertical rods. Along that wall, which seems to be the entrance of a courtyard, a figure walks. Presented on the left section of the drawing, walking towards the right, he is captured in the movement of walking, one foot completely on the ground, the other left behind, outlining the movement forward, that the posture of the arms accompanies. The very detailed image seems to relate to a precise vision of Giacometti, sketched from life, if it’s not a copy of a reproduction in a book. The artist gives to the composition a character at the same time precise in the depiction of detail of the joints of the stones of the wall, the décor of the gate, the hinges that connect it to the two sections of the walls, and heavy because of the insistence with which the pen comes back on the outlines, hatching in places the wall and the ground, and focussing on the figure defined by simple forms. The work on the line is developed at the back where Giacometti has taken up the drawing of the metallic gate to work out more precisely its frame, its hinges and lock. These representations are similar to the drawings of landscapes where Giacometti represents, especially in Stampa, the houses at the foot of the mountains, the telegraph poles, by bringing out the lines, the structures of the buildings. This drawing, for which Jacques Dupin wrote a certificate in 1966, was exhibited in Giacometti’s lifetime during the retrospective devoted to the ensemble of his work at the Kunsthaus in Zürich from 2 December 1962 to 6 January 1963.

Signed with a pencil at the bottom left corner "Alberto Giacometti"

Private collection
Private collection

1962 Alberto Giacometti, Zurich (Switzerland), Kunsthaus Zürich, from December 2nd 1962 to January 6th 1963, no. 283

Alberto Giacometti, Zurich : Kunsthaus, 1962, cat. no. 283, p. 42