Fondation Giacometti

Giorgio Soavi, Italian poet and novelist (1923-2008), met Giacometti in November 1962, during a dinner at a mutual friend’s home in Paris. He visited his studios in Stampa (Canton of Grisons, Switzerland) and in Paris in the Sixties, and in November 1963 he sat in Stampa for two paintings. According to Soavi, who recounted his sittings with Giacometti in several texts published after the artist’s death, this signed portrait would be the second of the short series. Giacometti would have started it during the same sitting of November 63, finding the canvas of the first portrait “too shiny” (probably because of the coarse-grained material). The fact of working in series is very common in Giacometti’s work as is the fact of making two paintings during the same sitting. That is the case for other painted portraits of Caroline, Yanaihara and Sir David Sainsbury, among others. This painting remained in the studio in Stampa until 1965. Again, according to the testimony of the model, in April 1965 Soavi paid a visit to the Gicaometti couple in Stampa. It is on this occasion that Giacometti signed and dated the painting, and wrote on the back his dedication: “A Giorgio Soavi/ con tutta la mia/ amicizia/ Stampa 29 aprile 1965/ Alberto Giacometti”, before offering it to his model. Soavi also reported that, although Giacometti never said he was satisfied with one of his works, he would have confessed to not having retouched this painting since the sitting in 1963, “for fear of spoiling it”. Despite the fact that Soavi said he had sat the whole night for the two portraits, this painting seems to have been made more quickly than some other very detailed portraits with dense pictorial matter, typical of the artist’s mature painting. Here the touch is light, “liquid”, and the colours rather clear and luminous. The background of the painting has been left completely blank, which is very rare in the paintings made in the Fifties, but more and more frequent in the numerous paintings made in the Sixties. The model’s face, by contrast, significantly occupying the centre of the painting, is laboriously worked on. Because of the lightness of the features, one notices in exemplary fashion the attention the artist has paid to the construction of the face, going from the hollow of the eyes and the root of the eyes. This painting has never been exhibited or published in the artist’s lifetime.

Dated and signed with a paintbrush at the bottom right corner 29 avril 1965 "1963. Alberto Giacometti"
Dedicated with a paintbrush on the recto, at the bottom 29 avril 1965 "A Giorgio Soavi/ con tutta la mia/ amicizia/ Stampa 29 aprile 1965/ Alberto Giacometti"

Giorgio SOAVI
Private collection
Sale Sotheby's Milan (Italy), April 21st, 2009, lot n ° 22

1970 Alberto Giacometti (1901-1966), Rome (Italy), Villa Medici, from October 24th to December 18th 1970, no. 25
1973 La Svizzera Italiana onora Alberto Giacometti, Lugano (Italy), Museo civico di Belle Arti, from April 7th to June 17th 1973, no. 46
1995 Alberto Giacometti. Sculture. Dipinti. Disegni, Milan (Italy), Palazzo Reale, from January 26th to April 2nd 1995, no. 108
2000 I Giacometti. La valle, il mondo, Milan (Italy), Fondazione Antonio Mazzotta, from February 13th to May 14th 2000
2005 Alberto Giacometti. Percorsi lombardi, Sondrio (Italy), Museo Valtellinese di Storia e Arte, from January 20th to April 22nd 2005, no. 14

Giorgio SOAVI, Protagonisti. Giacometti. Sutherland. De Chirico, Milan : Longanesi & C., 1969, p. 91
Alberto Giacometti (1901-1966), Rome : De Luca Editore, 1970, cat. no. 25
La Svizzera Italiana onora Alberto Giacometti, Lugano : Museo civico di Belle Arte, 1973, cat. no. 46
Alberto Giacometti, Lucerne : Kunstkreis, 1974, cat. no. 39, p. 89, pl. 39
Casimiro DI CRESCENZO, Alberto Giacometti. Sculture. Dipinti. Disegni, Florence : Artificio Edizioni, 1995, cat. no. 108, p. 282-283
Alberto Giacometti. Il sogno di una testa, Milan : Edizioni Gabriele Mazzotta, 2000, p. couverture
I Giacometti. La valle, il mondo, Milan : Edizioni Gabriele Mazzotta, 2000
Pietro BELLASI, Marco OBRIST, Chasper PULT, I Giacometti. La valle, il mondo, Milan : Edizioni Gabriele Mazzotta, 2000
Mon Giacometti, Venezia : Basilissa, 2001, p. 62, 64, 66
Casimiro DI CRESCENZO, Franco MONTEFORTE, Alberto Giacometti. Percorsi Lombardi, Sondrio : Fondazione Gruppo Credito Valtellinese, 2005, cat. no. 14, p. 81-85, 415, ill. p. 176
Giorgio Soavi Collezionista, Milan : Sotheby's, 2009, lot no. 22, p. 30-31, ill. p. 31