Fondation Giacometti

Alberto Giacometti used to draw and write on all kinds of supports, books, magazines, newspapers and paper tablecloths, any support that he had conveniently at hand. The artist himself did not generally keep these drawings that show his unrelenting work on the head, face and profile and on the female nude. Its shape has become generic, mixing the memories of his most often used model, his brother Diego, whose features disappear in the superimposition of the traces left by a pencil that does not leave the support during the making. It is therefore difficult to identify the persons represented and it is more a question of seeing here studies of the heads of men. This drawing, made on the envelope of a letter that was addressed to Alberto Giacometti and his brother Diego, illustrates this work. On the left, the artist has drawn a woman depicted full face, half-length, then in profile, and on the right, two heads of men, treated differently: while the head on the left leaves the outlines undefined – the chin and the cheeks, the top of the skull on which curls drawn with the tip of the ballpoint pen are entangled – the head on the right presents a more accomplished aspect, its outlines more firmly marked by several passings with the ballpoint. The drawing was dedicated to Giorgio Soavi, who was in conversation with the artist several times during the Sixties.

Dedicated with blue ballpoint pen on the left side "A Giorgio Soavi in / ricordo della sua vista. / Parigi 27 II 1962 Alberto Giacometti"
inscribed with blue ballpoint pen "Messieurs / Alberto Diego Giacometti / 46 Rue Hippolyte Maindron / Paris 14e"
Cachet at the top right corner "Gesundheit und / Lebensfreude durch / WINTERSPORT"

Giorgio SOAVI
Sale Sotheby's Milan Milan (Italy), April 21st, 2009, lot n ° 27

Giorgio SOAVI, Protagonisti. Giacometti. Sutherland. De Chirico, Milan : Longanesi & C., 1969, p. 76-77, ill. p. 76-77
Giorgio Soavi Collezionista, Milan : Sotheby's Milan, 2009, lot no. 27, p. 39, ill. p. 39