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Lot Essay
In the mid-1950s, Alberto Giacometti returned to studying the human form from life, focusing on the actual experience of looking and absorbing the likeness of the individual directly before him. Giacometti wanted to model, to feel within his hands as he worked, the very corporeality of another being, translating his impressions into clay. To this end, he looked to the people he was closest to, namely his brother Diego and wife Annette, for inspiration. Created the same year as Giacometti’s famed Femmes de Venise series and measuring 20 in. (50.8 cm.) high, Femme assise is a powerful illustration of the heightened sense of observation that underpinned the artist’s works from this period, which endowed his depictions of the female figure with a profound sense of physicality, mass and presence.
Giacometti’s purpose in re-engaging with a living, present model was not to describe a realistic resemblance of a conventional kind, but rather to create a palpable and convincing representation of the reality of being, as he perceived it, in space. Christian Klemm has explained: “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” (Alberto Giacometti, exh. cat., The Museum of Modern Art, New York, 2001, p. 222). While Femme assise was most likely inspired by the artist’s numerous and prolonged studies of Annette in his studio during these years, here Giacometti takes the opportunity to translate her form into an archetypal portrait of graceful femininity. There is a sense of stillness and poise as she sits before the artist, the upright line of her torso and elegant neck contrasting subtly with that of her tilted hips and the delicate slope of her legs. The keenly worked surface has a topography all its own, tracing Giacometti’s movements through the clay, as he manipulated and maneuvered the material to achieve his desired vision.
In his discussions of Femme assise, Yves Bonnefoy has noted that “because of the base, which is shaped like an anvil on a rectangular pedestal, she appears to be kneeling, like an Egyptian scribe” (op. cit., 1991, p. 417). During his early years in Paris, Giacometti was known to spend every Sunday at the Louvre, making use of the free admission policy, and copying the works that impressed him most. The sculptures he discovered in the Egyptian galleries, as well as the prehistoric artefacts from the Cycladic islands, captivated his imagination, and he returned to them again and again throughout his career. “In my mind, the most beautiful statues are neither Greek nor Roman, and certainly not from the Renaissance—they are Egyptian…,” he wrote to his parents. “Egyptian statues have grandeur, harmony in their lines and forms, perfect technique… And how animated their heads, as though they really were looking or talking…” (quoted in L. Fritsch and F. Morris, eds., Giacometti, exh. cat., Tate Modern, London, 2017, p. 45). Here, the influence of ancient Egyptian sculptural traditions can be seen in the subtle distribution of weight and internal balance within the figure, which recalls the posture of such famed works as Nakhthorhe ben prière, circa 595-589 BCE, held in the collection of the Musée du Louvre in Paris.
The present Femme assise was cast in 1958 and acquired from the artist by the famed gallerists Marguerite and Aimé Maeght, shortly after its creation. Though the two had met in passing before the Second World War, Giacometti was formally introduced to Aimé Maeght by André Breton in the late 1940s, and the artist quickly developed a close friendship with the couple, driven by their mutual passion for art. The Maeghts were fundamental in helping to build the artist's reputation in Post-War France, and when Marguerite and Aimé established their eponymous foundation in Saint-Paul de Vence, Giacometti was a firm supporter, providing his thoughts on the design of the building and later donating a number of sculptures to the institution.
Giacometti’s purpose in re-engaging with a living, present model was not to describe a realistic resemblance of a conventional kind, but rather to create a palpable and convincing representation of the reality of being, as he perceived it, in space. Christian Klemm has explained: “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” (Alberto Giacometti, exh. cat., The Museum of Modern Art, New York, 2001, p. 222). While Femme assise was most likely inspired by the artist’s numerous and prolonged studies of Annette in his studio during these years, here Giacometti takes the opportunity to translate her form into an archetypal portrait of graceful femininity. There is a sense of stillness and poise as she sits before the artist, the upright line of her torso and elegant neck contrasting subtly with that of her tilted hips and the delicate slope of her legs. The keenly worked surface has a topography all its own, tracing Giacometti’s movements through the clay, as he manipulated and maneuvered the material to achieve his desired vision.
In his discussions of Femme assise, Yves Bonnefoy has noted that “because of the base, which is shaped like an anvil on a rectangular pedestal, she appears to be kneeling, like an Egyptian scribe” (op. cit., 1991, p. 417). During his early years in Paris, Giacometti was known to spend every Sunday at the Louvre, making use of the free admission policy, and copying the works that impressed him most. The sculptures he discovered in the Egyptian galleries, as well as the prehistoric artefacts from the Cycladic islands, captivated his imagination, and he returned to them again and again throughout his career. “In my mind, the most beautiful statues are neither Greek nor Roman, and certainly not from the Renaissance—they are Egyptian…,” he wrote to his parents. “Egyptian statues have grandeur, harmony in their lines and forms, perfect technique… And how animated their heads, as though they really were looking or talking…” (quoted in L. Fritsch and F. Morris, eds., Giacometti, exh. cat., Tate Modern, London, 2017, p. 45). Here, the influence of ancient Egyptian sculptural traditions can be seen in the subtle distribution of weight and internal balance within the figure, which recalls the posture of such famed works as Nakhthorhe ben prière, circa 595-589 BCE, held in the collection of the Musée du Louvre in Paris.
The present Femme assise was cast in 1958 and acquired from the artist by the famed gallerists Marguerite and Aimé Maeght, shortly after its creation. Though the two had met in passing before the Second World War, Giacometti was formally introduced to Aimé Maeght by André Breton in the late 1940s, and the artist quickly developed a close friendship with the couple, driven by their mutual passion for art. The Maeghts were fundamental in helping to build the artist's reputation in Post-War France, and when Marguerite and Aimé established their eponymous foundation in Saint-Paul de Vence, Giacometti was a firm supporter, providing his thoughts on the design of the building and later donating a number of sculptures to the institution.