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Lot Essay
The Comité Giacometti has confirmed the authenticity of this sculpture. It will be included in the catalogue raisonné being prepared by the Foundation Alberto and Annette Giacometti.
The Association Alberto and Annette Giacometti has confirmed the authenticity of this work.
By 1950 Giacometti felt that he had exhausted the possibilities inherent in the attenuated, stick-like figures that he made in his "visionary, weightless style" during the late 1940s. These works, already deemed iconic, made him famous in Europe and America, and indeed his eagerness to move beyond these works also had much to do with casting off the stifling burden of their success and the expectations that they had fostered in the public eye. He now sought to reclaim a more realistic and concrete sense of space, without sacrificing the acute degree of expressivity that he had worked so long and hard to achieve. A renewed interest in painting, set in motion by his passion for drawing, proved to be the key in this next stage in his development (fig. 1). Just as he had done in the mid-1930s when he gave up his Surrealist and abstract manner, he worked directly in front of his model, most frequently his wife Annette or his brother Diego (fig. 2). The intimate nature of these relationships did much to inspire the probing intensity of these new sculptures. The poet Yves Bonnefoy observed:
It is already surprising enough to find an artist at the height of his powers, who in the space of three or four years had sculpted some of the major archetypes of modern art and was immediately recognized as such, practically abandoning this type of creation in order to devote himself to the portraits of a few individuals. But even more surprising and significant is the fact that during this final period of almost fifteen years, the 'heads' studied were exclusively those of Diego, Annette, Annetta [the artist's mother] Caroline and a very few other persons, all close friends, which proves that Giacometti had indeed chosen the existence of individuals, the here and now as the chief object of his new and future study; and that he instinctively realized that this object transcended all artistic signs and representations, since it was no less than life itself (in op. cit., Paris, 1991, p. 369).
Giacometti's very first bust, a sculpture done in plasticine in 1914, depicts Diego, and as Diego was practically an ever-present and absolute constant in his life, it seemed natural and inevitable that he should become the sculptor's most frequent and important model. While most modern artists turned to a wife or lover for their chief inspiration, their woman-as-muse, there was something innately heroic and masculine in Giacometti's rugged and searching approach to the model, in which he continually built up and broke down the plaster image he held in his hands, that often required a male subject, and found its truest expression in the depiction of another man. Indeed, it was fortunate that this man as subject was his brother, someone who was as close as possible to being a virtual extension of himself. Bonnefoy observed, "They were born of the same mother, and Diego, like himself, was 'not of this world' in the ordinary sense. In the presence of someone who is, as it were, his double, Giacometti more than ever is witness to the mystery of existence, like Hamlet thinking of Yorick, in front of a skull in the dust" (ibid., p. 432).
Giacometti began his series of Diego busts in 1951 (fig. 3). In this process he personalized and brought into closer focus the abstract and existentialist anxiety which he had previously expressed in the anonymous "visionary, weightless" figures, which were an expression of the distance between subject and viewer. While Giacometti subjected Diego to varying degrees of distortion, the essential traits of his brother's identity are always present and easily detectable: the powerful gaze of wide-open eyes, the prominent, slightly upturned nose, full lips, the tall forehead surmounted by a crest of hair. By obsessively concentrating on the particulars of a single individual, Giacometti created a universal man, who would soon become no less iconic than the figures of the late 1940s. Patrick Elliott wrote, "He chose Diego as his principal model partly because he was always there, but more particularly because his features were so familiar and his personality didn't get in the way: 'When he poses for me I don't recognize him' [Giacometti said]. One might say that that Diego was to Giacometti what the still-life was to Morandi or Mont Sainte-Victoire to Cézanne. Diego's features were etched on Giacometti's mind and his portraits of other sitters look strangely like Diego." (in Alberto Giacometti 1901-1966, exh. cat., Scottish National Gallery of Art, Edinburgh, 1996, p. 23).
Giacometti modeled two basic types of Diego busts. In one group Giacometti formed the upper chest to serve as a massive base for a smallish but realistically rounded head, so that the head appears to recede into the space around it (fig. 4). In the second group, to which the present sculpture belongs, the upper body is less massive in relation to the head, which appears narrow when viewed from the front, as in the earlier figures, but is broad and flat along the sides, giving it spade-like appearance when seen from the side. The plane of the head is emphatically perpendicular to that of the chest. Viewed frontally, the primary elements that comprise the centerline of Diego's face--his eyes, nose, mouth and chin--have been preserved, while all other non-essential mass has been cut away. While space appears to press in on the side of the head, the overall effect is that the bust occupies space in a more aggressive manner, and stands vis-à-vis the viewer in a closer, more confrontational attitude.
The flattened head teases the viewer with an unavoidable dichotomy. Giacometti urges us to view the sculpture frontally, face-to-face, as he positioned himself before his sitter, or as we normally encounter another person. However, Diego's distinctive features are readable only from the side, from which direction the mass of the upper body is diminished. Giacometti, in his busts, grappled persistently with the ambiguities inherent in visual perception. Christian Klemm has noted, "For Giacometti it was the essential presence of the human being, as it appears to the artist, that he sought to grasp--the ceaseless dialogue between seeing and the seen, eye and hand, in which form continually grows and dissolves" (in Alberto Giacometti, exh. cat., The Museum of Modern Art, New York, 2001, p. 222).
(fig. 1) Alberto Giacometti, Diego assis dans l'atelier, 1950. Sale, Christie's New York, 30 April 1996, lot 17. BARCODE 23662063
(fig. 2) Alberto Giacometti with Diego and Annette, circa 1952. Photograph by Alexander Liberman. BARCODE 23662056
(fig. 3) Alberto Giacometti, Tête de Diego au col roulé, 1951. Sale, Christie's New York, 11 November 1997, lot 163. BARCODE 23662049
(fig. 4) Alberto Giacometti, Diego au Chandail, 1954. Sale, Christie's London, 30 November 1988, lot 518. BARCODE 23662032
**Additional figs:
Photograph of Alberto Giacometti outside studio BARCODE 23661967
Photograph of Diego Giacometti with bronze portrait BARCODE 23661950
The Association Alberto and Annette Giacometti has confirmed the authenticity of this work.
By 1950 Giacometti felt that he had exhausted the possibilities inherent in the attenuated, stick-like figures that he made in his "visionary, weightless style" during the late 1940s. These works, already deemed iconic, made him famous in Europe and America, and indeed his eagerness to move beyond these works also had much to do with casting off the stifling burden of their success and the expectations that they had fostered in the public eye. He now sought to reclaim a more realistic and concrete sense of space, without sacrificing the acute degree of expressivity that he had worked so long and hard to achieve. A renewed interest in painting, set in motion by his passion for drawing, proved to be the key in this next stage in his development (fig. 1). Just as he had done in the mid-1930s when he gave up his Surrealist and abstract manner, he worked directly in front of his model, most frequently his wife Annette or his brother Diego (fig. 2). The intimate nature of these relationships did much to inspire the probing intensity of these new sculptures. The poet Yves Bonnefoy observed:
It is already surprising enough to find an artist at the height of his powers, who in the space of three or four years had sculpted some of the major archetypes of modern art and was immediately recognized as such, practically abandoning this type of creation in order to devote himself to the portraits of a few individuals. But even more surprising and significant is the fact that during this final period of almost fifteen years, the 'heads' studied were exclusively those of Diego, Annette, Annetta [the artist's mother] Caroline and a very few other persons, all close friends, which proves that Giacometti had indeed chosen the existence of individuals, the here and now as the chief object of his new and future study; and that he instinctively realized that this object transcended all artistic signs and representations, since it was no less than life itself (in op. cit., Paris, 1991, p. 369).
Giacometti's very first bust, a sculpture done in plasticine in 1914, depicts Diego, and as Diego was practically an ever-present and absolute constant in his life, it seemed natural and inevitable that he should become the sculptor's most frequent and important model. While most modern artists turned to a wife or lover for their chief inspiration, their woman-as-muse, there was something innately heroic and masculine in Giacometti's rugged and searching approach to the model, in which he continually built up and broke down the plaster image he held in his hands, that often required a male subject, and found its truest expression in the depiction of another man. Indeed, it was fortunate that this man as subject was his brother, someone who was as close as possible to being a virtual extension of himself. Bonnefoy observed, "They were born of the same mother, and Diego, like himself, was 'not of this world' in the ordinary sense. In the presence of someone who is, as it were, his double, Giacometti more than ever is witness to the mystery of existence, like Hamlet thinking of Yorick, in front of a skull in the dust" (ibid., p. 432).
Giacometti began his series of Diego busts in 1951 (fig. 3). In this process he personalized and brought into closer focus the abstract and existentialist anxiety which he had previously expressed in the anonymous "visionary, weightless" figures, which were an expression of the distance between subject and viewer. While Giacometti subjected Diego to varying degrees of distortion, the essential traits of his brother's identity are always present and easily detectable: the powerful gaze of wide-open eyes, the prominent, slightly upturned nose, full lips, the tall forehead surmounted by a crest of hair. By obsessively concentrating on the particulars of a single individual, Giacometti created a universal man, who would soon become no less iconic than the figures of the late 1940s. Patrick Elliott wrote, "He chose Diego as his principal model partly because he was always there, but more particularly because his features were so familiar and his personality didn't get in the way: 'When he poses for me I don't recognize him' [Giacometti said]. One might say that that Diego was to Giacometti what the still-life was to Morandi or Mont Sainte-Victoire to Cézanne. Diego's features were etched on Giacometti's mind and his portraits of other sitters look strangely like Diego." (in Alberto Giacometti 1901-1966, exh. cat., Scottish National Gallery of Art, Edinburgh, 1996, p. 23).
Giacometti modeled two basic types of Diego busts. In one group Giacometti formed the upper chest to serve as a massive base for a smallish but realistically rounded head, so that the head appears to recede into the space around it (fig. 4). In the second group, to which the present sculpture belongs, the upper body is less massive in relation to the head, which appears narrow when viewed from the front, as in the earlier figures, but is broad and flat along the sides, giving it spade-like appearance when seen from the side. The plane of the head is emphatically perpendicular to that of the chest. Viewed frontally, the primary elements that comprise the centerline of Diego's face--his eyes, nose, mouth and chin--have been preserved, while all other non-essential mass has been cut away. While space appears to press in on the side of the head, the overall effect is that the bust occupies space in a more aggressive manner, and stands vis-à-vis the viewer in a closer, more confrontational attitude.
The flattened head teases the viewer with an unavoidable dichotomy. Giacometti urges us to view the sculpture frontally, face-to-face, as he positioned himself before his sitter, or as we normally encounter another person. However, Diego's distinctive features are readable only from the side, from which direction the mass of the upper body is diminished. Giacometti, in his busts, grappled persistently with the ambiguities inherent in visual perception. Christian Klemm has noted, "For Giacometti it was the essential presence of the human being, as it appears to the artist, that he sought to grasp--the ceaseless dialogue between seeing and the seen, eye and hand, in which form continually grows and dissolves" (in Alberto Giacometti, exh. cat., The Museum of Modern Art, New York, 2001, p. 222).
(fig. 1) Alberto Giacometti, Diego assis dans l'atelier, 1950. Sale, Christie's New York, 30 April 1996, lot 17. BARCODE 23662063
(fig. 2) Alberto Giacometti with Diego and Annette, circa 1952. Photograph by Alexander Liberman. BARCODE 23662056
(fig. 3) Alberto Giacometti, Tête de Diego au col roulé, 1951. Sale, Christie's New York, 11 November 1997, lot 163. BARCODE 23662049
(fig. 4) Alberto Giacometti, Diego au Chandail, 1954. Sale, Christie's London, 30 November 1988, lot 518. BARCODE 23662032
**Additional figs:
Photograph of Alberto Giacometti outside studio BARCODE 23661967
Photograph of Diego Giacometti with bronze portrait BARCODE 23661950