Fondation Giacometti

The Pittsburgh collector David Thompson (1898-1965) owned more than a hundred works by Giacometti, paintings, sculptures and drawings that he had bought between the end of the Forties and the end of the Fifties. In 1962, after the death of his son, he sold his large collection, gathered from the end of the Twenties, to the gallery owner from Basel, Ernst Beyeler. The works by Giacometti from that collection form today the core of the Alberto Giacometti Stiftung in Zurich. Giacometti painted four portraits of David Thompson, two in 1955 – of which this one, signed and dated – and two others, a couple of years later. This portrait was made in Paris, that Thompson visited several times to buy works from the artist. In a letter from the 16 September 1955, the collector thanked Giacometti who had just sent him the two first portraits, inviting him to come and finish them in Pittsburgh. It was indeed fairly typical of Giacometti not to be satisfied with his works, and to consider them always unfinished. The second portrait, counterpart of the same 1955 sessions, is stylistically very close to this one, but done in a smaller format. The model is very similar in the look, clothes and position of the head slightly leaning to the left. Giacometti still used a few colours – the red of the face, the blue of the jacket – unlike the portraits of the following years which were to be less and less coloured. This painting, signed and dated, seems never to have been exhibited in the artist’s lifetime.

Dated and signed with a paintbrush at the bottom right corner "1955/ Alberto Giacometti"

Private collection (United States Of America)
Helene S. THOMPSON
Estate of Mrs Helene S. Thompson
Sale Sotheby Parke Bernet Inc. New York, NY (United States Of America), May 18th, 1983, lot n ° 45
Private collection

Private collection
Private collection

1995 Alberto Giacometti. La collezione di un amatore, Lugano (Switzerland), Galleria Pieter Coray, no. 10
1997 Alberto Giacometti, Hiroshima (Japan), Hiroshima Prefectural Art Museum, from February 18th to March 23rd 1997, no. 35
1998 Alberto Giacometti. Werke und Schriften, Francfort (Germany), Schirn Kunsthalle, from October 6th 1998 to January 3rd 1999, no. 59

Impressionist and Modern Paintings and Sculpture, New York, NY : Sotheby Parke Bernet Inc., 1983, lot no. 45
Alberto Giacometti. La collezione di un amatore, Sculture, dipinti, disegni, grafica, Milan : Skira Editore, 1995, cat. no. 10, p. 32, pl. 10, ill. p. 32
Alberto Giacometti, Tokyo : Togo International Inc. & Curator Office Inc., 1997, cat. no. 35, p. 84, pl. 35, ill. p. 84
Christoph VITALI (under the direction of), Alberto Giacometti. Werke und Schriften, Zurich : Verlag Scheidegger & Spiess, 1998, cat. no. 59, p. 332, pl. 59, ill. p. 85