Alberto Giacometti

Pierre Matisse Gallery, New York
Lucien Brownstone, New York
Private Collection, Europe
James Mayor Gallery, London
Private Collection (sold: Sotheby's, New York, October 6, 1989, lot 188)
Private Collection, New York (acquired at the above sale)
The Elkon Gallery, New York
Acquired from the above in 1993

New York, The Elkon Gallery, Surrealism, 1992, no. 3

New York, Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, A Century of Sculpture: The Nasher Collection, 1997, illustrated in color in the catalogue

Dallas, Nasher Sculpture Center, From Rodin to Calder: Masterworks of Modern Sculpture from the Nasher Collection, 2003-04

New York, Pace Wildenstein; Dallas, Nasher Sculpture Center, The Women of Giacometti, 2005-06, illustrated in color in the catalogue

Palma Bucarelli, Giacometti, Rome, 1962, the plaster cast listed

Michael F. Brenson, The Early Works of Alberto Giacometti 1925-35, Baltimore, 1974, the plaster cast listed p. 43

Alberto Giacometti (exhibition catalogue), Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofia, Madrid, 1990-91, illustration of another cast in color p. 377

Alberto Giacometti: Sculptures, Peintures, Dessins (exhibition catalogue), Musée d'Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris, 1991-92, no. 39, illustration of another cast p. 125

L'Atelier d'Alberto Giacometti; Collection de la Fondation Alberto et Annette Giacometti (exhibition catalogue), Centre national d'art et de culture Georges Pompidou, Paris, 2007, no. 273, illustrated in color p. 165

The bronze bears a rich, mottled dark-brown patina. The surface of the bronze is slightly rubbed in areas, but there are otherwise no scratches or abrasions. The sculpture is structurally sound, and the proper right corner of the base appears slightly crimped. Over all, this work is in excellent condition.
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.
NOTWITHSTANDING THIS REPORT OR ANY DISCUSSIONS CONCERNING CONDITION OF A LOT, ALL LOTS ARE OFFERED AND SOLD "AS IS" IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE CONDITIONS OF SALE PRINTED IN THE CATALOGUE.

Giacometti created several sculptures in the late 1920s that reduced the human form to a combination of simple shapes and lines (see fig. 1). All of these works demonstrate a rigorous economy of line and a purity of form expressed at no other time in his career. He described at one point the process that led him to this series of works: "In making this plaque, I began by wanting to make from memory exactly what I had seen. I started well enough by analysing a figure, with the legs, the head, the arms, but it all seemed wrong... To get nearer to my idea I had to sacrifice more and more, to reduce it... leave the head off, the arms, everything. All that remained of the figure was this plaque... It took a great deal of time to arrive at that plaque. It took a whole winter to make that plaque and two others of the same type... I started two or three sculptures and they all took the same course..." (quoted in Alberto Giacometti, 1901-1966 (exhibition catalogue), Edinburgh, 1996, p. 143).

Evident in the present work is the significant influence that ancient Aegean sculpture had upon the artist.  In the mid 1920s, Giacometti was exposed to a wide range of Cycladic forms (3000-2000 B.C.), including many representations of the female figure (see fig. 2).   Working among the artists of the avant-garde in Paris, Giacometti's attraction to these objects was not uncommon.   During the first half of the 20th century, tribal masks and reliquary sculpture from the African continent and Aegean archipelago were a powerful force in the modern art movement and catalyzed significant deviations from conventional naturalism in figural representation. Véronique Wiesinger describes the influence this 'primitive' art  had upon Giacometti during the late 1920s when Femme was conceived: "Some of the first attacks Giacometti waged against representational conventions after 1925 derived from his study of primitive art and its decentering of Western civilization, as well as from his exploration of the relationship between the sexes, which both he and the Surrealists viewed as the cornerstone of the social system. The vehicle of his attack was visual perception, a domain he explored early on to the point of physical dizziness. It is through his investigation into perception that he was able to free himself from academic conventions, his work oscillating between various types of formal experiments" (Véronique Wiesinger, "On Women in Giacometti's Work [And Some Women in Particular]," The Women of Giacometti (exhibition catalogue), New York, 2005, p. 15).

According to Mary Lisa Palmer of the Association Alberto and Annette Giacometti, the date of this cast in 1927-28.  Ms. Palmer observes that in his notebooks the artist dated the work 1926-27.  Véronique Weisinger of the Comité Giacometti, however, argues that this work the dates from 1928-29, and this date is cited in her recent catalogue for the exhibition at the Centre Pompidou in 2007.