|
|
|
|
|
|
|
 |
|
|
Spaightwood Galleries
Alberto Giacometti (Swiss, 1901-1966): People
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Although Giacometti exhibited with artists of the Surrealist movement during the early 1930s, the style for which he is most known developed later. Acclaimed by many as the most important sculptor of the middle decades of the twentieth century, Giacometti's sculptures, whether small enough to fit into a match box or towering over normal-sized people, expressed the angst of a world that had just experienced the horrors of World War II and was living in dread of a nuclear war. His figures are alienated from each other (and often themselves), existing nervously in a world that might consume them at any moment. In his group sculptures, none of the many figures occupying or crossing a given space ever make eye contact with each other, instead huddling inside themselves in alienated isolation. In the 1950s Giacometti turned with renewed interest to painting and printmaking, and is also considered an artist of great stature in these areas as well as sculpture. In his prints, whether working with a lithographic crayon on stone or a needle in copper, Giacometti created a large body of works featuring people, many of them close acquaintenances: his brother Diego, his wife Annette, his mistress Caroline, his friends, aiming less at a likeness than at a statement of the human condition: people pass through an often hostile world, mostly alone, aging as they go. For Giacometti, flesh, if not grass that fades, is clay that is malleable and changes constantly, pulled and pushed about violently by a sculptor, losing substance and suffering for the loses. His works are to be found in almost every major museum in the world.
Bibliography: General works: Yves Bonnefoy, Giacometti (NY: Abbeville, 1991); Jacques Dupin, Alberto Giacometti (Paris: Maeght, 1963); Patrick Elliott, Alberto Giacometti 1901-1966 (Edinburgh, National Galleries of Scotland, 1996); Valerie J. Fletcher (with essays by Silvio Berthoud and Reinhold Hohl), Alberto Giacometti 1901-1966 (Washington: Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, 1988); Reinhold Hohl, Alberto Giacometti (Stuttgart: Gerd Hatje, 1971); James Lord, A Giacometti Portrait (NY: The Museum of Modern Art, 1965); James Lord, Alberto Giacometti Drawings (Greenwich CT: NY Graphic Society, 1971); Peter Selz, Alberto Giacometti (NY: The Museum of Modern Art, 1965); Angela Schneider, ed. Alberto Giacometti: sculpture, paintings, drawings (Prestel, 1994); David Sylvester, Looking at Giacometti (NY: Henry Holt & Co., 1996).
Prints: Jean Genet et al. Alberto Giacometti Ouevre Grave (Tarascon: Maeght Editeur, 1990--includes texts in French by Genet, Giacometti, Sartre and Gerard-Georges Lemaire); Herbert Lust, Alberto Giacometti The Complete Graphics and 15 Drawings (NY: Crown, 1970); Chiara Negri, "Giacometti Lithographer and Etcher," Il conoscitore di stampe / print collector, Vol 4, n. 43, (1979), 2-33.
|
|
|
|
|
 |
|
Head of a man / Diego (Lust 155). Original lithograph, 1961. 90 signed and numbered impressions with large margin, of which ours is one. There are also c. 1500 impressions on paper with no margins as published in a 1961 issue of Derrière le Miroir dedicated to Giacometti's work. Giacometti's brother and assistant Diego was also a sculptor, but this is less a portrait than a statement about anxiety and the human condition. Oneof Giacometti's most powerful portraits. Image size: 380x280mm; paper size: 550x378mm (21-5/8x14-7/8 inches). Price: $18,500.
Also available: one of the c. 1500 unsigned impressions as published in Derrière le Miroir. Image and paper size: 380x280mm. Price: $850.
|
|
|
|
|
 |
|
Mère de l'artiste assise I / The artist's mothers seated I (Lust 50). Original lithograph, 1965. 75 signed and numbered impressions, of which this is 23/75. Herbert Lust suggests that in his late lithographs, Giacometti acieves "the calm of composition. . . . It is an art of logic, majesty, and pruning." One of Giacometti's greatest portraits. Image size: 652x498mm. Price: SOLD.
|
|
|
|
|
|
 |
|
|
|
Annette facing front (Lust 62). Original etching, 1956. 50 signed and numbered impressions plus c. 1000 unsigned unsigned impressions from the cancelled plate published in the 10th Anniversary issue of the deluxe art review, Derriere le Miroir. Image size: 206x57mm. Price: $1000.
|
|
|
|
 |
|
Nude in profile (Lust 64). Original etching, 1955. 50 signed and numbered impressions plus c. 1000 unsigned unsigned impressions from the cancelled plate published in the 10th Anniversary issue of the deluxe art review, Derriere le Miroir. Image size: 304x57mm. Price: $1000.
|
|
|
|
|
 |
|
The Tree. Original color lithograph, 1952. As published in the 1952 issue of the deluxe art review Verve. Giacometti's original lithograph, City Scene, is printed on the reverse (see immediately below). A very vertical person contemplates the even-more pronounced verticality of the tree. This may be Giacometti's only color lithograph; it is certainly one of a very small number if there are others. The Cenre Pompidou's fall-winter 2007 Giacometti exhibition included Giacometti's drawing (in reverse), a trial proof and one of the impressions from Verve. Image size: 353x232mm. Price: $1850.
|
|
|
|
 |
|
City Scene. Original lithograph, 1952. As published in the 1952 issue of the deluxe art review Verve. Giacometti's original color lithograph, The Tree, is printed on the reverse (see immediately above). Image size: 353x232mm. Price: $1850.
|
|
|
|
 |
|
Woman standing. Original lithograph, 1958. Published in 1958 in a special number of the deluxe art review Derriere le Miroir. A woman, apparently Giacometti's wife Annette, stands slightly off the vertical axis like the leaning tower of Pisa. Image size: 380x280mm. Price: $850.
|
|
|
|
 |
|
Buste II (Lust 31). Original lithograph, 1960. 150 singed and numbered impressions on Rives plus c. 1500 unsigned impressions (of which ours is one) published in 1960 in a special number of the deluxe art review Derriere le Miroir. A woman, apparently Giacometti's mistress Caroline, looks directly out at the viewer. Image size: 380x280mm. Price: $850.
|
|
|
|
 |
|
Buste (Lust 156). Original lithograph, 1961. 125 singed and numbered impressions plus c. 1500 unsigned impressions (of which ours is one) published in 1961 in a special number of the deluxe art review Derriere le Miroir devoted to Giacometti. A woman, apparently Giacometti's wife Annette, looks off into nowhere. This work was executed shortly after Giacometti began his affair with Caroline. Image size: 380x280mm. Price: $850.
|
|
|
|
 |
|
Nude (Lust 161). Original lithograph, 1961. 125 singed and numbered impressions plus c. 1500 unsigned impressions (of which ours is one) published in 1961 in a special number of the deluxe art review Derriere le Miroir devoted to Giacometti. One of Giacometti's most voluptuous studies of a woman. Image size: 380x280mm. Price: $850.
|
|
|
|
 |
|
Nude. Original lithograph, 1964. 150 signed proofs on Rives H.C. plus 1000 unsigned impressions (of which ours is one) on Arches for "L'Atelier Mourlot," an exhibition of works produced at the Mourlot litography workshop in Paris for a catalogue of an exhibtion at Gallery Redfern in London. Image size: 254x187mm. Price: $750.
|
|
|
|
|
|
Spaightwood Galleries, Inc.
To purchase, call us at 1-800-809-3343 (508-529-2511 in Upton MA & vicinity) or send an email to sptwd@verizon.net. We accept AmericanExpress, DiscoverCard, MasterCard, and Visa.
For directions and visiting information, please call. We are, of course, always available over the web and by telephone (see above for contact information). Click the following for links to past shows and artists. For a visual tour of the gallery, please click here. For information about Andy Weiner and Sonja Hansard-Weiner, please click here. For a list of special offers currently available, see Specials.
Visiting hours: Noon to six Saturdays and Sundays; other times by arrangement. Please call to confirm your visit. Browsers and guests are welcome.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|