Fondation Giacometti

Towards 1950, Giacometti made numerous studies of standing figures. Though we are not aware of other paintings showing a three-quarter man standing, the way of treating the figure is very close to the other characters painted by Giacometti around 1950. Unlike the standing women, often represented fixed, feet together, arms along the body and in a frontal vision favoured by the artist, the position of the man in this painting is rather dynamic. Right foot forward, left foot outwards and the bust slightly turned, the figure itself suggests and defines the depth of a space that is not described to us in any other way on the painting. A first sketch was made with thin strokes of red paintbrush, then covered with predominant grey tones. “If I see in grey, and in that grey the multitude of all the colours I feel and would like to display, why then should I use another colour?” Giacometti said in an interview in 1958, concluding: “my paintings have a more colourful effect on me than if I had painted them in richer, ‘truer’ colours, as others would say”. On that fine mix of grey tones, the black strokes outline the main lines, while white touches intervene last, to lighten up the tiny face, the arm and foot projected forward. Though the person represented is not specified, on purpose, it is probably his brother Diego, whose silhouette also appeared standing in the studio in a lithograph dating from 1951 published by Maeght. The reframing of the painting by the black frame drawn around the character, very typical of Giacometti, focuses the gaze on the figure and situates it in a defined space. Never exhibited in the artist’s lifetime, this painting was later cut and glued onto a fibreboard support.

Signature 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 (United States Of America), November 10th, 1987, lot n ° 57
Sale Christie's New York New York, NY (United States Of America), May 6th, 2008, lot n ° 41

1973 Selected European Masters of the 19th and 20th Centuries, London (United Kingdom), Marlborough Fine Art, no. 24

Selected European Masters of the 19th and 20th Centuries, London : Marlborough Fine Art, 1973, cat. no. 24, p. 49, ill. p. 49
Important Modern Paintings and Sculpture (Part I), New York, NY : Christie's New York, 1987, lot no. 57
Impressionist and Modern Art. Evening Sale, New York, NY : Christie's New York, 2008, lot no. 41, p. 202-205, ill. p. 203
Modern Sculpture. Impressionist and Modern Art. Evening Sale., New York, NY : Christie's New York, 2008, lot no. 41, p. 202, ill. p. 203