Fondation Giacometti

When Giacometti was quite young, he was already modelling heads. It was for him the exercise par excellence, enabling him to move forward in his effort to depict the particular vision he had of the world surrounding him. As Giacometti confided to André Parinaud in 1962: “If one had a head, one would have everything else; if one doesn’t have the head, one has nothing.” These busts of men, for which Giacometti’s brother has very likely sat, are not a portrait in the conventional sense of the term, but an effort repeated in a systematic fashion to penetrate the heart of the essence of the human being. With that work in series devoid of any anecdote, Giacometti also showed himself an artist in phase with the interests and researches of artists in the Fifties and Sixties. Diego Giacometti was the favourite male model of his brother, whose assistant and technical expert he had been since the middle of the Twenties. Though initially living in Alberto’s studio, Diego then rented a studio adjoining at 46 rue Hippolyte-Maindron, and because of that, he was always available. Thanks to him, Alberto Giacometti was able to practise without limitation the depiction of a man’s head as he saw it. Alternating the work from life and from memory, Giacometti had such an intimacy with his model that this one used to appear repeatedly in spite of himself, under his ballpoint pen and between his fingers, sometimes merging with his own features.

Signature and cast number engraved on the back, right "Alberto Giacometti / EA II/II"

Annette GIACOMETTI
Succession Annette Giacometti
Fondation Alberto et Annette Giacometti

2005 Henri Cartier-Bresson - Alberto Giacometti. Une communauté de regards, from January 13th to August 7th 2005
2005 Alberto Giacometti au donjon de Vez, Vez (France), Donjon de Vez, from June 18th to October 2nd 2005
2006 Alberto Giacometti - Bror Hjorth, Stockholm (Sweden), Liljevalchs Konsthall, from September 23rd 2006 to January 7th 2007, no. 22
2008 Alberto Giacometti, Rotterdam (Netherlands), Kunsthal, from October 18th 2008 to February 8th 2009, no. 100
2012 Alberto Giacometti. Coleção da Fondation Alberto et Annette Giacometti, Paris, Sao Paulo (Brazil), Pinacoteca do estado, from March 24th to June 17th 2012
2012 Alberto Giacometti. Coleção da Fondation Alberto et Annette Giacometti, Paris, Rio de Janeiro (Brazil), Museu de Arte Moderna, from July 17th to September 16th 2012
2012 Alberto Giacometti. Colección de la Fundación Alberto y Annette Giacometti,París, Buenos Aires (Argentina), Fundación PROA, from October 13th 2012 to January 9th 2013
2014 Giacometti, Milan (Italy), Galleria d'arte moderna, from October 8th 2014 to February 1st 2015
2016 Alberto Giacometti. Rétrospective, Rabat (Morocco), Musée Mohammed VI, from April 20th to September 4th 2016
2017 Alberto Giacometti, L'Oeuvre ultime., Nice (France), Espace culturel départemental du port de Nice, from June 23rd to October 15th 2017
2018 Alberto Giacometti Retrospective Québec, Quebec (Canada), Musée National des Beaux Arts du Québec, from February 8th to May 13th 2018
2018 Giacometti Retrospective Guggenheim New York, New York, NY (United States Of America), The Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, from June 8th to September 12th 2018
2018 Giacometti Restrospective Bilbao, Bilbao (Spain), Guggenheim Museum, from October 19th 2018 to February 24th 2019
2019 Alberto Giacometti, D'après le modèle (Prague)., Prague (Czech Republic), Veletržní palác, from July 18th to December 1st 2019
2021 Alberto Giacometti. Une rétrospective. Le réel merveilleux., MONACO (Monaco), Grimaldi Forum Monaco, from July 3rd to August 29th 2021
2023 Alberto Giacometti: Beginning, again., Tel Aviv (Israel), Tel Aviv Museum of Art, from April 30th to October 7th 2023

"Giacometti quêteur de l'inaccessible", in La Gazette de l'Hôtel Drouot, Paris : La Gazette de l'Hôtel Drouot, no. 31, september 16th, 2005, ill. p. 167
Véronique WIESINGER, Bo NILSSON, Alberto Giacometti. Bror Hjorth, Stockholm : Liljevalchs Konsthall, 2006, p. 89, ill. p. 67
Véronique WIESINGER, Bo NILSSON, Alberto Giacometti. Partial reprint with corrections, Stockholm : Liljevalchs Konsthall, 2006, cat. no. 22, p. 93, ill. p. 68
Véronique WIESINGER, Charlotte VAN LINGEN (under the direction of), Alberto Giacometti, Harderwijk : D'jonge Hond, 2008, cat. no. 100, ill. p. 139
Véronique WIESINGER (under the direction of), Giacometti, Sao Paulo : Cosac & Naify Ediçoes, 2012, ill. p. 371