Fondation Giacometti

Alberto Giacometti explored the correspondences between the tree and the human figure right from the end of the Forties: this theme, that one finds in sculpture on the doors to the tomb of Liliane Kaufmann in 1956 and in the painting “Homme, arbre et montagne” in 1958, had generated, as early as 1949, a series of preparatory drawings with a print. Three different versions of the lithograph “L’Arbre” are known, printed from three of these drawings, presenting a tiny human figure facing a tree that occupies the full height of the sheet. One of those three lithographs was produced in a large un-numbered edition, in the magazine Verve, in issue 27-28, volume VII in December 1952, published by Tériade, who had known Giacometti since the end of the Twenties. This double-sided drawing bears on its front, like “L’Arbre” (AGD 848), the date 1949, the oldest in the series, but it is possible, as was common with Giacometti, that he dated it subsequently and erroneously. Several of these preparatory drawings to the lithograph “L’Arbre”, were, like this one, made with coloured pencils whose use, in Giacometti’s graphic oeuvre, is very rare. The back offers another drawing, made with a black lithographic pencil only, that presents a motif very similar to the drawing “Deux personages sur un disque” (Collection Fondation Giacometti inv. 1994-1626-1). The work apparently has never been exhibited nor published in the artist’s lifetime. It was offered by the artist in November 1962 to Giorgio Soavi, who evokes the memory of this gift in a text that was published the year following Giacometti’s death.

Signed and dated with a pencil at the bottom right corner "Alberto Giacometti 1949"

Giorgio SOAVI
Private collection
Sale Sotheby's Milan Milan (Italy), April 21st, 2009, lot n ° 24
Sale Sotheby's London London (United Kingdom), February 9th, 2011, lot n ° 181

1999 Alberto Giacometti. Disegni, sculture e opere grafiche, Bologne (Italy), Museo Morandi, no. 14

Giorgio SOAVI, Protagonisti. Giacometti. Sutherland. De Chirico, Milan : Longanesi & C., 1969, p. 65, ill. p. 65
Giorgio SOAVI, Disegni di Giacometti, Milan & Rome : Editoriale Domus, 1973, cat. no. [46]
Giorgio SOAVI, Dessins de Giacometti, Rome : Franca May Edizioni, 1980, cat. no. [46]
Alberto Giacometti. Disegni, sculture e opere grafiche, Milan : Edizioni Gabriele Mazzotta, 1999 / Bologne : Museo Morandi, 1999, cat. no. 14, p. 142, ill. p. 87
Giorgio Soavi Collezionista, Milan : Sotheby's Milan, 2009, lot no. 24, p. 36, ill. p. 36
Impressionist & Modern Art. Day Sale, London : Sotheby's London, 2011, lot no. 181, p. 120, ill. p. 120