Fondation Giacometti -  Mère de l'artiste épluchant les légumes
AGD 1339

Mère de l'artiste épluchant les légumes

Date 1917

Medium Pencil on wove paper

Dimensions 13,46 x 10,03 in.

Collection Private collection

Description

Early on, in his father’s studio, Alberto Giacometti practised drawing, creating still life works, copies from book illustrations, and portraits of his family. This portrait of his mother was executed with a rather soft black pencil on a thick drawing paper that has served as support for countless drawings from the time of the artist’s youth. The mother is represented with her head bowed, peeling vegetables. The body occupies the height of the sheet, but that monumental aspect does not contradict the intimate character of the scene, a daily activity in the family life. The young Alberto already shows here a real mastery in the representation of volumes in space, and works the outlines through very bold confrontations of zones blackened by the pencil and zones left untouched. The date was appended with the same pencil as created the drawing, but the signature, that could have been added slightly later, was made with another pencil. The drawing used to belong to Maurice Lefebvre-Foinet, who was Alberto Giacometti’s supplier of canvas and painting materials.

Inscription

Dated and signed with a pencil at the bottom right corner "1917 / Giacometti"

Provenance

Sale Christie's France SNC Paris (France), December 1st, 2009, lot n ° 53

Exhibition history

1978 Alberto Giacometti, Saint-Paul-de-Vence (France), Fondation Marguerite et Aimé Maeght, from July 8th to September 30th 1978, no. 189

Bibliography

James LORD, Dessins d'Alberto Giacometti, Paris : Editions Seghers, 1971, cat. no. 5
Jacques DUPIN, Alberto Giacometti, Saint-Paul-de-Vence : Fondation Marguerite et Aimé Maeght, 1978, cat. no. 189, p. 199
Art Impressionniste et Moderne, Paris : Christie's France SNC, 2009, lot no. 53, p. 46, ill. p. 46

To search for a work, consult the Alberto Giacometti Database