- 6
Alberto Giacometti
Estimate
1,000,000 - 1,500,000 EUR
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Description
- Alberto Giacometti
- Figurine
- signed Alberto Giacometti on the base
- painted bronze
- H. : 21.2 cm ; 8 3/8 in.
Provenance
Balthus (a gift from the artist)
Hanover Gallery, London (by 1972)
Sale : Sotheby's, New York, 12th November 1987, lot 442
Private Collection, Belgium
Acquired from the above by the present owner
Hanover Gallery, London (by 1972)
Sale : Sotheby's, New York, 12th November 1987, lot 442
Private Collection, Belgium
Acquired from the above by the present owner
Condition
The figure is in excellent condition. The bronze is sound. The paint layer is thick and the pigments are remarkably fresh. A close inspection reveals some very light wear to the most protruding areas, notably along the edges of the base where the bronze is visible through the paint.
Please note that there are three drilled holes and a small remnant of glue on the underside of the base relating to a previous mount.
"In response to your inquiry, we are pleased to provide you with a general report of the condition of the property described above. Since we are not professional conservators or restorers, we urge you to consult with a restorer or conservator of your choice who will be better able to provide a detailed, professional report. Prospective buyers should inspect each lot to satisfy themselves as to condition and must understand that any statement made by Sotheby's is merely a subjective, qualified opinion. Prospective buyers should also refer to any Important Notices regarding this sale, which are printed in the Sale Catalogue.
NOTWITHSTANDING THIS REPORT OR ANY DISCUSSIONS CONCERNING A LOT, ALL LOTS ARE OFFERED AND SOLD AS IS" IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE CONDITIONS OF BUSINESS PRINTED IN THE SALE CATALOGUE."
"In response to your inquiry, we are pleased to provide you with a general report of the condition of the property described above. Since we are not professional conservators or restorers, we urge you to consult with a restorer or conservator of your choice who will be better able to provide a detailed, professional report. Prospective buyers should inspect each lot to satisfy themselves as to condition and must understand that any statement made by Sotheby's is merely a subjective, qualified opinion. Prospective buyers should also refer to any Important Notices regarding this sale, which are printed in the Sale Catalogue.
NOTWITHSTANDING THIS REPORT OR ANY DISCUSSIONS CONCERNING A LOT, ALL LOTS ARE OFFERED AND SOLD AS IS" IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE CONDITIONS OF BUSINESS PRINTED IN THE SALE CATALOGUE."
Catalogue Note
“In reality we always see in colour, don’t we? If I do a sculpture in grey clay or cast in bronze, the impression of narrowness is greater; if I paint it, it tends to look much more true than if it’s not painted. That’s why I always have a desire to do painted sculpture.”
Alberto Giacometti, in conversation with David Sylvester, 1964
Alberto Giacometti’s painted bronze sculptures of the early 1950s were almost immediately recognised as a ground-breaking body of work that would powerfully influence the course of modern art. In 1952, the painted version of the second state of La Cage became the very first acquisition by a French museum of a work by Giacometti when it was bought by the Musée de Grenoble on the advice of a young curator named Jean Leymarie. Figurine clearly also held a particularly special significance for the artist himself for he presented the only painted versions of the sculpture as gifts to two of his closest friends. The cast which now resides at the Toyama Prefectural Museum of Modern Art was given to Isaku Yanaihara, a Japanese professor of philosophy who became one of Giacometti’s favourite models. The present work was given to the painter known as Balthus who had been among Giacometti’s earliest acquaintances in Paris. Very different men and very different artists, Figurine thus attests to the strength of a friendship which nevertheless lasted for over thirty years.
A solitary female figure, standing just over 20cm tall, her arms fixed tight to the sides of her body; she waits, immobile; she watches, her eyes fixed straight ahead; her skin is luminous, highlighted with whispering strokes of pink and grey; her red mouth is delicately delineated, her feet firmly anchored to the floor. In the traces left by the artist’s fingers as they danced up and down her form, pinching, gauging, scraping, caressing, we sense a palpable undercurrent of unrest. Source of extraordinary radiance, she communicates nothing of her secrets to the spectator; an enigma.
Conceived circa 1949-50 and painted in 1951, Figurine (AGD 2266) belongs to the years which have been hailed the anni mirabiles. An extremely rare example of Alberto Giacometti’s earliest explorations of the power of painted bronze sculpture, the present work furthermore represents one of the most important motifs of the artist’s career: a standing female nude.
The fruit of a period of intense production and creativity, the work of the early 1950s marks an important evolution in Giacometti’s sculpture. Female figures, hitherto neglected in favour of male representations, now prevail. One after another, the most extraordinary works emerged from Giacometti’s studio, including several that can be counted amongst the artist’s greatest masterpieces: Le Chariot, La Forêt, La Cage. If Giacometti had been the rather bemused beneficiary of unprecedented levels of attention in the wake of his first international exhibition at the Pierre Matisse Gallery in New York in January 1948, he did not pause to savour the recognition, preferring instead to work relentlessly towards the next, scheduled to take place in late 1950 at the Pierre Matisse Gallery once again. Interest in Giacometti’s work was growing in Paris, too. It was around this time that a young Aimé Maeght offered to purchase one half of the artist’s production (the other being reserved for Pierre Matisse); impressing Giacometti when, upon being asked by the artist for how many of the numerous plaster works that filled the studio on rue Hippolyte-Maindron he would be prepared to pay the costs of casting, he answered: “All!”
The motif of a standing female nude situated within a defined volume formed a central axis of the artist’s explorations during this period. Giacometti executed several variations on this theme from which we can trace the extraordinary evolution of the motif, the most important of which have been assembled by the Fondation Alberto et Annette Giacometti for the 2013 exhibition Alberto Giacometti: Espace, tête, figure: a sketch that was executed on a large wood panel in the artist’s studio in Stampa, an impressive oil on canvas which now belongs to the Museum of Modern Art in New York, and a remarkable painted plaster, Figurine dans une cage. Perhaps the singularmost striking variation on this theme is a work which bears the same title as one of Giacometti’s most pessimistic pre-war sculptures: La Cage. Inextricably linked to the present work, La Cage was conceived in 1949-50. In its original state, La Cage presents us with the juxtaposition of a man and a woman within the same space – an open-sided cage. The male figure is unequivocally static; he has been reduced to a small bust, seen in profile, with a very long neck and his head slightly thrown back. The female figure, in contrast, is viewed frontally, her arms out-stretched with great dynamism; she dominates the space. In a letter written to Pierre Matisse in 1950, Giacometti expounds on the problems this figure caused him, however: “I saw this composition in its form and colour before I started it but the woman’s arms were raised, her hands outstretched, and that quickly becomes intolerable in sculpture.” In the second state of La Cage, executed almost immediately after the first, Giacometti radically changes the disposition of the female figure. Her arms by her side, she withdraws further into the space. Smaller, starkly upright, she emits a remarkably intense energy. Enchanted and intrigued by the figurine created for the second state of La Cage, Giacometti liberated her from her confines – and from the man’s presence – casting her in an autonomous edition of three, two of which he then painted with oils: the present work and one other, which now belongs to the Toyama Prefectural Museum of Modern Art in Japan. Temporarily reunited with the painted La Cage of 1951 by the Fondation Alberto et Annette Giacometti at the Musée de Grenoble for the exhibition Alberto Giacometti: Espace, tête, figure, this work – and, by extension, the present work – remind us, as Véronique Wiesinger states, that “for Giacometti, one element of a work is a work in itself” (Véronique Wiesinger (ed.), Alberto Giacometti: Espace, tête, figure (catalogue d’exposition), Arles, 2013, p. 43, translated from the French: “pour Giacometti, la partie d’une œuvre est déjà une œuvre”).
Figurine is one of the very first bronze sculptures to be painted by the artist. To Giacometti, bronze was a noble medium, not only for its durability but also because of the role it had played in the development of the human imagination. The surfaces were extremely important. Giacometti had long appreciated the fact that the sculpture of antiquity and the Middle Ages had once been painted to startling, life-like effect. Whilst he had often added touches of colour to his plaster casts in the past, Giacometti had seldom painted his bronzes, preferring to experiment instead with varieties of patina. When none of these quite satisfied him, he tried paint; immediately recognising that the painted sculptures were a new departure toward the fleeting visual sensation he sought, as James Lord observed: “The breathtaking vivacity and finesse of the painted sculptures give them a place apart in Giacometti’s oeuvre. The paint added power, and added it precisely in the direction in which the artist had for fifteen years been trying to go, direction of heightened representation of the human appearance” (James Lord, Giacometti: A Biography, New York, 1983 & 1997, p. 335). The first bronze sculptures to be painted by the artist were the figurines composing the major works of this period – La Cage, La Forêt, La Clairière, Quatre figurines sur piédestal – almost certainly in preparation for the exhibition which took place at Galerie Maeght in June 1951; Giacometti’s first solo exhibition in Paris for nearly twenty years.
Alberto Giacometti, in conversation with David Sylvester, 1964
Alberto Giacometti’s painted bronze sculptures of the early 1950s were almost immediately recognised as a ground-breaking body of work that would powerfully influence the course of modern art. In 1952, the painted version of the second state of La Cage became the very first acquisition by a French museum of a work by Giacometti when it was bought by the Musée de Grenoble on the advice of a young curator named Jean Leymarie. Figurine clearly also held a particularly special significance for the artist himself for he presented the only painted versions of the sculpture as gifts to two of his closest friends. The cast which now resides at the Toyama Prefectural Museum of Modern Art was given to Isaku Yanaihara, a Japanese professor of philosophy who became one of Giacometti’s favourite models. The present work was given to the painter known as Balthus who had been among Giacometti’s earliest acquaintances in Paris. Very different men and very different artists, Figurine thus attests to the strength of a friendship which nevertheless lasted for over thirty years.
A solitary female figure, standing just over 20cm tall, her arms fixed tight to the sides of her body; she waits, immobile; she watches, her eyes fixed straight ahead; her skin is luminous, highlighted with whispering strokes of pink and grey; her red mouth is delicately delineated, her feet firmly anchored to the floor. In the traces left by the artist’s fingers as they danced up and down her form, pinching, gauging, scraping, caressing, we sense a palpable undercurrent of unrest. Source of extraordinary radiance, she communicates nothing of her secrets to the spectator; an enigma.
Conceived circa 1949-50 and painted in 1951, Figurine (AGD 2266) belongs to the years which have been hailed the anni mirabiles. An extremely rare example of Alberto Giacometti’s earliest explorations of the power of painted bronze sculpture, the present work furthermore represents one of the most important motifs of the artist’s career: a standing female nude.
The fruit of a period of intense production and creativity, the work of the early 1950s marks an important evolution in Giacometti’s sculpture. Female figures, hitherto neglected in favour of male representations, now prevail. One after another, the most extraordinary works emerged from Giacometti’s studio, including several that can be counted amongst the artist’s greatest masterpieces: Le Chariot, La Forêt, La Cage. If Giacometti had been the rather bemused beneficiary of unprecedented levels of attention in the wake of his first international exhibition at the Pierre Matisse Gallery in New York in January 1948, he did not pause to savour the recognition, preferring instead to work relentlessly towards the next, scheduled to take place in late 1950 at the Pierre Matisse Gallery once again. Interest in Giacometti’s work was growing in Paris, too. It was around this time that a young Aimé Maeght offered to purchase one half of the artist’s production (the other being reserved for Pierre Matisse); impressing Giacometti when, upon being asked by the artist for how many of the numerous plaster works that filled the studio on rue Hippolyte-Maindron he would be prepared to pay the costs of casting, he answered: “All!”
The motif of a standing female nude situated within a defined volume formed a central axis of the artist’s explorations during this period. Giacometti executed several variations on this theme from which we can trace the extraordinary evolution of the motif, the most important of which have been assembled by the Fondation Alberto et Annette Giacometti for the 2013 exhibition Alberto Giacometti: Espace, tête, figure: a sketch that was executed on a large wood panel in the artist’s studio in Stampa, an impressive oil on canvas which now belongs to the Museum of Modern Art in New York, and a remarkable painted plaster, Figurine dans une cage. Perhaps the singularmost striking variation on this theme is a work which bears the same title as one of Giacometti’s most pessimistic pre-war sculptures: La Cage. Inextricably linked to the present work, La Cage was conceived in 1949-50. In its original state, La Cage presents us with the juxtaposition of a man and a woman within the same space – an open-sided cage. The male figure is unequivocally static; he has been reduced to a small bust, seen in profile, with a very long neck and his head slightly thrown back. The female figure, in contrast, is viewed frontally, her arms out-stretched with great dynamism; she dominates the space. In a letter written to Pierre Matisse in 1950, Giacometti expounds on the problems this figure caused him, however: “I saw this composition in its form and colour before I started it but the woman’s arms were raised, her hands outstretched, and that quickly becomes intolerable in sculpture.” In the second state of La Cage, executed almost immediately after the first, Giacometti radically changes the disposition of the female figure. Her arms by her side, she withdraws further into the space. Smaller, starkly upright, she emits a remarkably intense energy. Enchanted and intrigued by the figurine created for the second state of La Cage, Giacometti liberated her from her confines – and from the man’s presence – casting her in an autonomous edition of three, two of which he then painted with oils: the present work and one other, which now belongs to the Toyama Prefectural Museum of Modern Art in Japan. Temporarily reunited with the painted La Cage of 1951 by the Fondation Alberto et Annette Giacometti at the Musée de Grenoble for the exhibition Alberto Giacometti: Espace, tête, figure, this work – and, by extension, the present work – remind us, as Véronique Wiesinger states, that “for Giacometti, one element of a work is a work in itself” (Véronique Wiesinger (ed.), Alberto Giacometti: Espace, tête, figure (catalogue d’exposition), Arles, 2013, p. 43, translated from the French: “pour Giacometti, la partie d’une œuvre est déjà une œuvre”).
Figurine is one of the very first bronze sculptures to be painted by the artist. To Giacometti, bronze was a noble medium, not only for its durability but also because of the role it had played in the development of the human imagination. The surfaces were extremely important. Giacometti had long appreciated the fact that the sculpture of antiquity and the Middle Ages had once been painted to startling, life-like effect. Whilst he had often added touches of colour to his plaster casts in the past, Giacometti had seldom painted his bronzes, preferring to experiment instead with varieties of patina. When none of these quite satisfied him, he tried paint; immediately recognising that the painted sculptures were a new departure toward the fleeting visual sensation he sought, as James Lord observed: “The breathtaking vivacity and finesse of the painted sculptures give them a place apart in Giacometti’s oeuvre. The paint added power, and added it precisely in the direction in which the artist had for fifteen years been trying to go, direction of heightened representation of the human appearance” (James Lord, Giacometti: A Biography, New York, 1983 & 1997, p. 335). The first bronze sculptures to be painted by the artist were the figurines composing the major works of this period – La Cage, La Forêt, La Clairière, Quatre figurines sur piédestal – almost certainly in preparation for the exhibition which took place at Galerie Maeght in June 1951; Giacometti’s first solo exhibition in Paris for nearly twenty years.