Fondation Giacometti

The standing woman is one of the central themes of Giacometti’s work in the Thirties. Giacometti returned to Paris in September 1945 from Switzerland, where he had spent the war years. Preparing in 1947 his first exhibition at the Pierre Matisse Gallery in New York, his sculptures seem to him “resembling only [if they are] long and slender” as he said himself, inventing a style that would make him famous. He created a vast number of women’s figures with their arms stuck to their bodies, which refer to the Egyptian sculpture Giacometti had been admiring since the Twenties. Here, the figure is perched on a big square and massive pedestal that directly evokes the Ptolemaic funerary statuettes. Giacometti has always carefully studied the relation of his sculptures and their pedestal, in order to better position them in real space, to better visualise them, or on the other hand to isolate them in an imaginary space as was probably the case here. This sculpture was sketched in 1950 by Giacometti in a letter to Pierre Matisse, with the other sculptures he was getting ready to exhibit in his gallery in New York. Giacometti described the work as a “figurine on a base that for me is a boat” (another probable allusion to Egyptian mythology). As he did for other sculptures, Giacometti conveys here by a description, a very precise vision. This work, cast in bronze from 1950 onwards, was published in the artist’s lifetime only from the Sixties with the title “Figurine sur grand socle”. By the end of 1950, Giacometti was getting enthusiastic about the painting of bronzes, to do without the patina he did not like nor use. This sculpture bears witness to that. It is delicately painted so as to accentuate the light and dark parts, in a fashion that is all but naturalistic.

Numbered and signed at the bottom of the base to its proper right "1/6 A. Giacometti"

Alberto GIACOMETTI
Pierre Matisse Gallery
Private collection
Sale Christie's New York New York, NY (United States Of America), May 7th, 2008, lot n ° 423
Succession Jan Krugier
Sale Sotheby's London London (United Kingdom), June 23rd, 2014, lot n ° 12

2010 XXVe Biennale des Antiquaires, Paris (France), Grand Palais, from 15th to September 22nd 2010

Germaine BREE, Paule-Marie GRAND, in Portfolio & Artnews Annual, Literature. Theater. Music. Science & Visual Arts, New York, NY : The Art Foundation Press, Inc., no. 3, 1960, p. 75
Giacometti, Rome : Editalia. Edizioni d'Italia, 1962, ill. p. 69
Impressionist and Modern Art. Day Sale, New York, NY : Christie's New York, 2008, lot no. 423, p. 180, ill. p. 181
Impressionist & Modern Art. Evening Sale, London : Sotheby's London, 2014, lot no. 12