Fondation Giacometti

" (…) I have under my eyes as I'm writing to you the head I took away from the studio the last evening we saw each other. It is wonderful and makes me extremely happy. I thank you again, with all my heart… ". These are the words written by Jacques Dupin in June 1963 to Alberto Giacometti to thank him for the painting received during one of his visits to the studio in rue Hippolyte-Maindron.
A poet and dealer, Jacques Dupin was very close to Giacometti. After having made his acquaintance in 1953, at the time he was writing a text for the magazine Cahiers d'Art, Dupin became an assiduous visitor to the studio and a great amateur of the artist's work, on which he published several texts and essays.

We don't know the model for the painting Dupin simply called “head”, without giving it a more precise name.
Undoubtedly the work is part of the series “black heads” that Giacometti began to work on between the 1950s and the beginning of the 1960s. With dark grey tonalities, those works are characterized by the care brought to the treatment of the head. It is the most worked upon part, where the artist superimposes layers of paint, until the surface has been made very thick, almost wrinkled. The bust is still very simple, almost sketched. Surrounded by a linear frame around the subject, the black head emerges from a dark background made of broad brushstrokes. The bottom part of the painting presents a very crusty surface made of impasto and several original flows of paint deposited on the lower border of the canvas. On the left side, ochre projections (probably diluted clay) prove the work was put down for a while in Giacometti's studio.
In the right lower corner, the signature and the date are almost invisible; we can read “Alberto Giacometti 1958”, written with a paintbrush.

Having entered Jacques Dupin's collection, the work was exhibited in the 1990s during the retrospective exhibitions in Madrid (Centro de Arte Reina Sofia, 1990) and Paris (Musée d’Art Moderne, 1991).

Signed and dated with a paintbrush at the bottom right corner "Alberto Giacometti 1958"

Jacques DUPIN
Private collection
Sale Christie's Paris (France), May 28th, 2013, lot n ° 8

1990 Alberto Giacometti. Dibujo. Escultura. Pintura, Madrid (Spain), Centro de Arte Reina Sofia, from November 14th 1990 to January 15th 1991, no. 281
1991 Alberto Giacometti. Sculptures. Peintures. Dessins, Paris (France), Musée d'Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris, from November 30th 1991 to March 15th 1992, no. 213

La Gazette Drouot, Paris : La Gazette de l'Hôtel Drouot, no. 11, march 22nd, 2013, p. 20, ill. p. 20
La Gazette Drouot, Paris : La Gazette de l'Hôtel Drouot, no. 14, april 12th, 2013, p. 20, ill. p. 20
La Gazette Drouot, Paris : La Gazette de l'Hôtel Drouot, no. 17, may 3rd, 2013, p. 20, ill. p. 20
La Gazette Drouot, Paris : La Gazette de l'Hôtel Drouot, no. 18, may 10th, 2013, p. 20, ill. p. 20
La Gazette Drouot, Paris : La Gazette de l'Hôtel Drouot, no. 20, may 24th, 2013, p. 20, ill. p. 20
Hommage à Jacques Dupin et André du Bouchet, Quimper : Ecole des Beaux-Arts de Quimper, 1986, p. 6, ill. p. 6
Kosme Maria de BARANANO, Alberto Giacometti. Dibujo. Escultura. Pintura, Barcelona : Lunwerg Editores S.A., 1990, cat. no. 281, p. 602, ill. p. 603
Suzanne PAGE (under the direction of), Alberto Giacometti. Sculptures. Peintures. Dessins, Paris : Paris-Musées, 1991, cat. no. 213, p. 315, ill. p. 315
Art Impressionniste + Moderne, Paris : Christie's, 2013, lot no. 8, p. 20, ill. p. 20
Thierry DUFRENE, Hommage à Jacques Dupin. Miro / Giacometti / Bacon, Paris : Christie's, 2013, p. 22, ill. p. 23 & 29