Alberto Giacometti

Pierre Matisse Gallery, New York (acquired directly from the artist)
Galerie Claude Bernard, Paris
Larry Aldrich, New York (and sold: Parke-Bernet Galleries, Inc., New York, October 30, 1963, lot 55)
Dr. A. Feingold, New York (acquired at the above sale)
Dr. Theodore Leshner, New York (and sold: Parke-Bernet Galleries, Inc., New York, December 8-9, 1965, lot 112)
R.W. Warren (acquired at the above sale)
Brook Street Gallery, London
Reiss-Cohen Gallery, New York
James Goodman Gallery, Inc., New York (and sold: Sotheby's, New York, May 16, 1984, lot 414)
Paul Denton (acquired at the above sale)
Arnold Herstand & Company, New York
Bentley Gallery, Scottsdale, Arizona
Acquired from the above in 2001

Work is in excellent condition. Canvas is not lined. Paint layer is stable and clean. There is a very faint surface scratch, approximately 3/4 inch long, just to the left of the figure's eye. Under UV light: a few speck of varnish in the lower left quadrant fluoresce, but no in painting is apparent.
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.

Influenced by the post-war existentialist movement and spurred on by his own reworking of themes from his Surrealist past, Giacometti presents the viewer with a dramatic and haunting visage that has been suggested in the exhibition catalogue for Alberto Giacometti 1901-1966, held at the Kunsthalle Vienna & Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art, Edinburgh in 1996, to be that of his younger brother, Diego. The picture captures a particular sentiment that the artist once expressed in a Surrealist prose poem: “The human face is as strange to me as a countenance, which, the more one looks at it, the more it closes itself off and escapes by the steps of unknown stairways” (quoted in Alberto Giacometti (exhibition catalogue), Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Washington, D.C. & San Francisco Museum of Art, San Francisco, 1988-89, p. 37).

Throughout his career, Giacometti used Diego as a model. In nearly all of his works, whether paintings or sculpture, Giacometti’s approach was consistent: the model is frontally posed and deprived of all attributes that might convey information about personality or social status. Typically, the model engages the viewer directly and holds the viewer's gaze. Thus Buste is unique in that it is executed in profile. Characterized by a frenetic energy, the strongly worked head appears like an apparition, emerging from the obscure haze of brown-grey paint. Buste foreshadows Giacometti’s "Black Head" paintings which he worked on in the 1960s. In the paintings and sculpture of this period, he explored the psychological complexity of objectively representing someone with whom he was intimately familiar and nowhere is this more apparent than in the artist’s representations of his brother. Rather poignantly, Bonnefoy observed that “[in] the portraits of Diego one even senses considerable disquiet, as well as great energy… 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” (Alberto Giacometti (exhibition catalogue), Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art, Edinburgh, 1996, pp. 426 & 432).