Alberto Giacometti

Diego Giacometti, France (the artist's brother; by descent from the artist)

Bruno Giacometti, Switzerland (the artist's brother; by descent from the above)

Acquired from the above by the present owner in 2000

Zurich, Kunsthaus; Vienna, Kunsthalle; Edinburgh, Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art & London, Royal Academy of Arts, Alberto Giacometti, 1996-97, no. 38, illustrated in colour in the catalogue

Montreal, Musée des Beaux-Arts de Montréal, Alberto Giacometti, 1998, no. 7, illustrated in the catalogue (with incorrect medium)

Humlebæk, Louisiana Museum of Modern Art, Cézanne & Giacometti - Paths of Doubt, 2008, no. 74, illustrated in colour in the catalogue

Saint-Paul de Vence, Fondation Maeght, Giacometti & Maeght 1946-1966, 2010, no. 14, illustrated in colour in the catalogue

London, The National Portrait Gallery, Giacometti: Pure Presence, 2015-16, no. 12, illustrated in colour in the catalogue

Jacques Dupin, Alberto Giacometti. Eclats d’un portrait, Paris, 2007, illustrated in a photograph of the artist's studio p. 177

Giacometti painted this portrait of his younger brother Diego in the summer of 1925, when they were both in their mid-twenties. Diego Giacometti moved to Paris in February of that year, installing himself in Alberto’s studio in Montparnasse. The brothers spent the summer back in Switzerland, near their native Stampa, where Portrait de Diego was executed. Giacometti sculpted, painted and drew portraits of himself, his siblings and his parents from an early age (figs. 1 & 2), and continued to use them as models throughout his career. Diego, to whom he was closest, would become Alberto’s primary model for his sculpture and painting from the mid-1930s and particularly in the post-war period, during which time Diego was also Alberto’s principal collaborator, supervising the casting of his bronzes.

Patrick Elliott wrote about the present work in the catalogue of the Giacometti exhibition held in 1996, when Portrait de Diego was first shown in public: ‘While experimenting with Cubism in his sculpture, Giacometti continued to paint representational portraits. This portrait was painted at Maloja, during the summer of 1925. Preparatory drawings for the painting, which has not previously been exhibited or illustrated, feature in a sketchbook firmly dated to 1925 […]. In several of Giacometti’s paintings of the 1925-26 period, when he was beginning to study Cubism, the facial features of the sitter are almost absent’ (P. Elliott in Alberto Giacometti (exhibition catalogue), op. cit., 1996-97, p. 136).

Giacometti himself was certainly very fond of the present work, which remained in his possession for the rest of his life. After Alberto’s death in 1966 it passed into the collection of his brother Diego, and after Diego’s death in 1985 to their youngest brother Bruno. Portrait de Diego was not seen in public or illustrated in the literature until its first exhibition in 1996, and most recently formed part of the acclaimed exhibition Giacometti: Pure Presence, held at London’s National Portrait Gallery until January this year.