Fondation Giacometti

Throughout his life, Alberto Giacometti rarely painted several scenes on the same canvas; that characteristic of the painter was well-documented in 1947 (at the time of the exhibition at Pierre Matisse’s) and in 1951 (during the exhibition at Maeght). To not waste any material, the artist sometimes decided to cut his own canvases with a knife in order to make single works from it.

These [Two heads] seem to be part of a much bigger painting, probably composed of several little studies of characters, transformed in the artist's lifetime.
Two busts, that of a man and that of a woman neither identified (close to portraits of Diego and Annette) appear on both sides of the painting. Between the two heads are the legs of a standing naked figure.
The painting seems to have been cut at the top; the legs of the standing character could have been trimmed at the time of the cutting up of the work. To mask this transformation, the artist has drawn two rectangles on the top edge of the canvas, painted in light grey afterwards.
On the lower edge, on the other hand, a line of paint runs across the whole canvas, passing beneath the signature. It is the original edge of the painting that later would be widened and reframed by Giacometti.

Close to the “men's busts” and “Annette's portraits” from the beginning of the 1950s, the work has been dated back at around 1951. The painting is in keeping with the whole of the polyscenic works made by Giacometti at that time, well-represented by the painting photographed by Alexander Liberman in 1951 (FAAG 2003-0746)

Never exhibited in the artist's lifetime, this work appears in several exhibitions from the 1990s onwards.

Signed with a paintbrush at the bottom right corner "Alberto Giacometti"

Serafino CORBETTA
Private collection (Italy)

1990 Ipotesi Helvetia. Un certo espressionismo, Ferrare (Italy), Gallerie Civiche d'arte Moderna
1995 Alberto Giacometti. Sculture. Dipinti. Disegni, Milan (Italy), Palazzo Reale, from January 26th to April 2nd 1995
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. 12
2010 Alberto Giacometti. Die Frau auf dem Wagen, Duisburg (Germany), Wilhelm-Lehmbruck-Museum, from January 31st to April 18th 2010, no. s.n.
2011 Alberto Giacometti. L'anima del Novecento, Gallarate, Milan (Italy), Museo Arte Gallarate, from March 5th to June 5th 2011, no. 52
2012 Caravaggio Courbet Giacometti Bacon. Testori e la grande pittura europea. Miseri, Ravenne (Italy), Loggetta Lombardesca, from February 12th to June 17th 2012

Alberto Giacometti. La collezione di un amatore, Sculture, dipinti, disegni, grafica, Milan : Skira Editore, 1995
Pietro BELLASI, Marco OBRIST, Chasper PULT, I Giacometti. La valle, il mondo, Milan : Edizioni Gabriele Mazzotta, 2000
Casimiro DI CRESCENZO, Franco MONTEFORTE, Alberto Giacometti. Percorsi Lombardi, Sondrio : Fondazione Gruppo Credito Valtellinese, 2005, cat. no. 12, p. 414, ill. p. 169
Alberto Giacometti. Die Frau auf dem Wagen, Duisburg : Wilhelm-Lehmbruck-Museum Duisburg, 2010, p. 170, ill. p. 171
Giacometti et les Etrusques, Florence : Giunti Arte Mostre Musei, 2011 / Paris : Pinacothèque de Paris, 2011, p. 76, ill. p. 77
Casimiro DI CRESCENZO, Zanella EMMA, Michael PEPPIATT, Alberto Giacometti. L'anima del Novecento, Gallarate, Milan : Fondazione Falleria d'Arte Moderna e Contemporanea Silvio Zanella, 2011 / Milan : Mondadori Electa S.p.A., 2011, cat. no. 52, p. 126, pl. 52, ill. p. 95
Claudio SPADONI (under the direction of), Caravaggio Courbet Giacometti Bacon. Testori e la grande pittura europea. Miseria e splendore della carne, Milan : Silvana Editoriale Spa, 2012, p. 234, ill. p. 239