Fondation Giacometti

Alberto Giacometti had the habit of making pencil sketches on all supports, whether newspapers or magazines that he had at hand, and very often on the paper tablecloths of the restaurants where he had lunch, sometimes kept by his wife Annette or by his friends. On those pieces of paper, he drew very free subjects, at times hard to identify. This drawing on a tablecloth was made in 1948, during an evening with Georges Hugnet (1906-1974). Poet, artist and specialist of surrealism, a movement he belonged to in the Thirties, Hugnet made himself known to André Breton at the beginning of the Thirties through his writings on the Dada movement, and he published several books of his own poems illustrated by surrealist artists. In 1947, he organised an exhibition of drawings on restaurant tablecloths that he collected from artists he was in contact with in Parisian restaurants like the Catalan. On this drawing, Hugnet has himself indicated the name of the artist and the date. The work takes up several motifs frequently seen on this type of drawing: men’s heads, front and profile, a female nude, several fantasy figures and inscriptions, which can be related to the conversation between the two men. It is not possible to identify with certainty the characters in his representations, which are more like studies, in which merge the memories of various models who have sat for Giacometti. His brother Diego, for example, shows through in several studies of men’s heads, without it being described as portraits as such.

Signed and dated à la plume et à l'encre "Alberto Giacometti / le 16 Sept. 48"

Sale Germann auktionen Zurich (Switzerland), June 11th, 2012, lot n ° 53

Bedeutende Gemälde, Skulpturen, Aquarelle, Zeichnungen, Zurich : Germann auktionen, 2012, lot no. 53