Fondation Giacometti

Still life is a theme often treated by Giacometti in painting. His first painting, made around 1915, is exactly that, a still life with apples in the studio. Though the apples are the subject chosen by Giacometti for most of his still life work (laid on a dresser, on a table, on a plate, but also on a stool in the studio, in the middle of his sculptures), the bunches of flowers also appear constantly in his paintings. In a famous text from 1952, Giacometti wrote: “When I look at a leaf from the bunch that is there, on the table, in front of me, what attracts me? Is it the shape of the leaf or its green colour, or is it the same green standing against the black background? Is it its position in the bunch or is it the distance from the table to the leaf and the leaf to the ceiling? Or is it the pattern of the grooves, or the white flower that moves in front of that same leaf, or it is rather something else I cannot say […]”. Giacometti made three other paintings whose composition is very similar to this one, with a bunch of flowers in a vase and one or several apples placed next to it. One of those paintings is dedicated by the artist to his mother, and dated 1961. The two others are not dated, but have probably been painted at the same time. In a series of paintings, all probably made in the studio in Stampa, one finds the same lightness in the stroke, strongly drawn, in a very clear and luminous composition. As in the other paintings of the same series, the subject is barely sketched with black strokes, while a large part of the canvas has been left bare. A few details on the other hand (an apple, the flowers, the leaves) have been enhanced by bright colours like the pinks and greens of the bunch and the light yellow of the flowers and the apple in the foreground. Stylistically close to a few rare portraits from the beginning of the Sixties, in which the figures are drawn in black on a big white background (see for example “Caroline au fond blanc”, a standing nude of Annette from 1961, or the “Portrait d’Isaku Yanaihara” kept at the Alberto Giacometti-Stiftung in Zurich), this painting contrasts on the other hand with most of the paintings Giacometti made at that time, characterized as they are by dense layers of dark paint superimposed. Signed and dated 1961, having entered a private collection very early on, this painting had very probably been sent to be exhibited at the Venice Biennale in 1962 (in which Giacometti won the Grand Prize for sculpture), as two stickers from the Biennale on the back of the frame let us suppose. However, the painting does not figure in the catalogue of that exhibition, nor on the photographs taken during the hanging.

Signed and dated with a paintbrush at the bottom right corner "Alberto Giacometti/ 1961"

Private collection
Private collection
Sale Sotheby's London (United Kingdom), March 26th, 1985, lot n ° 60
Jan KRUGIER
Alice LAWRENCE
Sale Christie's New York, NY, November 5th, 2008, lot n ° 34

1962 XXXI Biennale internazionale d'arte, Venice (Italy), Biennale d'arte, from June 16th to October 7th 1962, no. 278
1990 Alberto Giacometti. Dibujo. Escultura. Pintura, Madrid (Spain), Centro de Arte Reina Sofia, from November 14th 1990 to January 15th 1991, no. 274
1999 Alberto Giacometti. Ausgewählte Skulpturen, Gemälde und Arbeiten auf Papier. A s, Zurich (Switzerland), Galerie Art Focus, from June 11th to September 25th 1999
2013 Art Basel 2013, Basel (Switzerland), from 13th to June 16th 2013

Kosme Maria de BARANANO, Alberto Giacometti. Dibujo. Escultura. Pintura, Barcelona : Lunwerg Editores S.A., 1990, cat. no. 274, p. 588, pl. 274, ill. p. 275
Yves BONNEFOY, Alberto Giacometti. Biographie d'une oeuvre, Paris : Flammarion, 1991, cat. no. 453, p. 467, pl. 453
Alberto Giacometti. Ausgewählte Skulpturen, Gemälde und Arbeiten auf Papier. A selection of Sculptures, Paintings and Works on Paper, Zurich : Galerie Art Focus, 1999, p. 50 et 88, ill. p. 51
The collection of Alice Lawrence, New York, NY : Christie's, 2008, lot no. 34, p. 20-21, ill. p. 21
Yves BONNEFOY, Alberto Giacometti. Biographie d'une oeuvre, Paris : Flammarion, 2012, cat. no. 453, p. 467, pl. 453