À propos du lot
n° 28
Titre : ALBERTO GIACOMETTI
Provenance : Galerie de L'Elysée (Alex Maguy), Paris
Jonathan Rosen (sold: Sotheby's Parke Bernet, New York, May 21, 1975, lot 150)
Joseph H. Hirshhorn, Washington, D.C. (acquired at the above sale)
The Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Washington, D.C. (a bequest from the above on August 31, 1981 and sold: Sotheby's, New York, May 7, 1991, lot 36)
Acquired at the above sale by the present owner
Literature : Jacques Dupin, Alberto Giacometti, Paris, 1962, illustration of another cast p. 265
Herbert & Mercedes Matter, Alberto Giacometti, New York, 1987, illustration of another cast pp. 96 & 102-03 (titled Woman)
Alberto Giacometti, Francis Bacon: Isabel and Other Intimate Strangers (exhibition catalogue), Gagosian Gallery, New York, 2008, illustration in color of another cast pp. 64-65
Notes : The subject of the present sculpture is Annette, a young woman whom Giacometti met in Geneva shortly after moving to Switzerland in 1942. Four years later Annette moved to Paris with Giacometti. She would soon become his wife and aside from his brother Diego, his principal model for the rest of the artist's life. Annette's appearance in Giacometti's sculpture of the mid-1950s marked a decisive shift in his art. In comparison with the spindly, anonymous female figures of the previous decade, the women of the 1950s are marked by a more expressive style. Although several strong females provided inspiration for Giacometti's work, it was Annette who had the most profound and long-lasting effect on his work.
Giacometti paid great attention to the modelling of his works, and Femme exhibits a vibrancy and vitality unique to his sculpture. Its rough treatment of the bronze, its recesses and moulding create a dynamic surface and invite a play of light and shadow in such a way that they become a part of the work itself. In this, his roughly textured figures are reminiscent of artefacts of ancient civilisations, such as Egyptian statues, African tribal reliquary figures or Cycladic fertility goddesses. The artist himself proclaimed: "The works of the past that I find the most true to reality are those that are considered the least, the furthest from it" (quoted in Herbert & Mercedes Matter, op. cit., p. 211). With her voluptuous features and pronounced forms, the Femme has a mythic dimension that is eternal.
Sotheby's, Salle de vente
, New York, US
🔓Accès libre sans carte bancaire.
Titre de la vente : Impressionist & Modern Art Evening Sale
Date de la vente : 02/11/2010
🔓Accès libre sans carte bancaire.
Référence de l'enchère
: Live Sale
