Fondation Giacometti

Alberto Giacometti often used to draw and write on books and magazines, copying art works reproduced, writing down the impressions left by his readings, or drawing subjects, apparently without any link with the support itself. On this cover of the July 1954 issue of Temps Modernes, a magazine Giacometti regularly read, and of which countless copies are adorned with his drawings, the artist made several portraits of Henri Matisse. That year, the administration of Monnaies et Médailles asked Alberto Giacometti to create a portrait of Henri Matisse, at the suggestion of the latter who, after having accepted in 1950 to create his own commemorative medal, finally designated Giacometti on the 20 May 1954 to design it. This choice was perhaps suggested by his son-in-law Georges Duthuit, a friend of Giacometti. Without waiting for the official commission from the administration of the Monnaies, which only arrived in December, Giacometti went to spend a few days in Nice with Matisse at the end of June. There, and then during a second stay in September, he made a series of portraits of the artist on big sheets of drawing paper. This drawing on the spread of the magazine cover clearly shows the persistency with which Alberto Giacometti took up this subject, the back cover even offering an example of the medal whose project we know about thanks to a ball point drawing on paper kept at the Fondation Giacometti. Despite a follow-up from the administration of the Monnaies and a project made in plaster, then cast in bronze, the project of the administration of the Monnaies never materialized. This drawing was never reproduced in the artist’s lifetime.

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Sale Christie's Paris Paris (France), December 1st, 2009, lot n ° 56

2011 Salon du dessin 2011, Paris (France), Palais de la Bourse, from March 30th to April 4th 2011

James LORD, Dessins d'Alberto Giacometti, Paris : Editions Seghers, 1971, cat. no. 81
Art Impressionniste et Moderne, Paris : Christie's France SNC, 2009, lot no. 56, p. 49
Ausstellung im Bürgli, Zurich : Arturo Cuéllar, 2010