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Home , Alberto Giacometti, Borgonovo, Cuno Amiet, Diego Giacometti, Giovanni Giacometti, Isabel Nicholas

Giacometti Pure Presence paul moorhouse

One evening in late 1945, emerged from a cinema on the Clockwise from top Boulevard in . The forty-four year old artist had recently returned to Fig. 1 Dollupt atquunt usapid unt ipsapedita sam, quam, quaspidis et est the French capital following a period of almost four years spent living as a virtual exile eaque etur, net ium que eum rempos a in , while Paris was under German occupation (fig 1). With the war over, he inienit, quo es sandamus nost modit had made his way back and was relieved to find his ramshackle studio on the nearby aut est accum ipsam sin pliatectem qui cum eum idenditia quid esci dit estrunt rue Hippolyte-Maindron unchanged. Throughout Giacometti’s absence, his younger pra et qui volestios utecto eum quidel brother Diego had carefully preserved the studio’s contents. In contrast, Paris had imus est as ex ex est que volum dolorat been profoundly affected by recent events, its artistic and intellectual life shaken to ectiam, sus derchitatem sam, accus. the roots. Even so, that the studio had survived no doubt created an expectation that Fig. 2 Dollupt atquunt usapid unt his life and work could now resume their previous pattern. This, however, was not to ipsapedita sam, quam, quaspidis et est be. As he later recorded, at the moment of stepping into the street he became aware eaque etur, net ium que eum rempos a inienit, quo es sandamus nost modit that ‘Everything was different. Nor was this simply a sense of the altered post-war aut est accum ipsam sin pliatectem qui atmosphere. Rather, he registered ‘a complete change in reality’. His surroundings cum eum idenditia quid esci dit estrunt appeared transformed, ‘marvellous, totally strange, and the boulevard had the beauty pra et qui volestios utecto eum quidel imus est as ex ex est que volum. of the Arabian Nights.’ For an individual given to flashes of sudden epiphany, this singular insight ranks as the most profound he had experienced. He recollected, Fig. 3 Dollupt atquunt usapid unt ‘It was a beginning.’ ipsapedita sam, quam, quaspidis et est eaque etur, net ium que eum rempos a inienit, quo es sandamus nost modit In order to understand the significance of this occurrence it is necessary to place aut est accum ipsam sin pliatectem qui cum eum idenditia quid esci dit estrunt it in the wider context of Giacometti’s personal and artistic development. One of pra et qui volestios utecto eum quidel his earliest works was a bust of Diego, a small head created in 1914 at the age of imus est as ex ex est que volum dolorat thirteen. That remarkably precocious contains, in essence, the hallmarks of ectiam, sus derchitatem sa. all that would follow. The younger boy’s appearance has migrated into the sculptor’s materials, which it inhabits, conveying an impressive semblance of a living presence. The likeness thus created is, however, not an exact one and Diego’s face is an abstraction. Eschewing slavish imitation, the features are rendered summarily and evocatively, suggesting rather than describing. Even at this incipient stage, the head that confronts us is not a facsimile of appearance but goes further. In everyday life and in our encounters with others, we tend to grasp the unfamiliar immediately and then subsequently modify that initial impression by analysing its constituents. Giacometti’s head of Diego preserves the fresh, unadulterated vitality of a first glimpse (fig 2).

Encouraged by this success, the youthful artist turned to other members of his family as subjects for portraits. These included his mother Annetta, his father Giovanni, Ottilia his sister, and his youngest brother Bruno. Landscape and still life motifs also figured in the numerous , watercolours and in oils that he produced. Looking back on such early essays in rendering appearance, Giacometti commented, ‘I had the feeling that there was no obstruction between seeing and doing…it was paradise.’ Indeed, with that initial body of work, Giacometti found and established what would be the central, abiding preoccupation of his art until his death over fifty years later in 1966. In the latter part of his life, Giacometti articulated that driving force with undiminished vigour and precision, ‘To copy exactly, as in 1914, appearance. Exactly the same concern.’

40 GIACOMETTI • PURE PRESENCE introduction 41 Opposite The endeavour to engage with the perceived reality of the external world stands at Fig. 4 Atur si optate seque autem the heart of Giacometti’s entire output. Driven by that aim, and comprising sculpture, volupid es alibearciis ped enimi, in rem inum fugia volorerit quae ererum , drawings and prints, his oeuvre went through numerous stylistic changes. It conserit litaspe par chil lorepudae proceeded from a post-Cubist analysis of form in the early , through a Surrealist acepudi dolora eum res dolumqu phase that ensued at the end of that decade, to his re-engagement with art that untusdae num rest, aut vendit endeliquo maximod igendaer. proceeded from direct observation after the death of his father in 1933. Thereafter, and in particular following his transformative experience on the Boulevard Montparnasse in 1945, Giacometti concentrated on reproducing with absolute fidelity his optical experiences which he characterised simply as ‘what I see.’

During the course of those changes and developments, his subject matter nevertheless remained remarkably steadfast. Even when working from memory and imagination, notably while making the abstracted and fantastical that established his reputation within the Surrealist group, Giacometti’s ongoing source of inspiration was a human presence. Whether the outcome of observation or recollection, figures and faces are a recurrent, practically continuous theme that carries the insistent force of obsession. This was something that the artist repeatedly acknowledged, noting that ‘The human figure has always interested me above all.’ At the same time, the reasons for that preoccupation were mysterious, even to Giacometti himself. ‘Why do I feel the need, yes, the need, to paint faces? Why am I …how could I put it…almost astonished by people’s faces, and why have I always been? Like an unknown sign, as if there were something to see which at first glance is invisible? Why?’

The depth, intensity and extent of Giacometti’s engagement with the depiction of people have few parallels in twentieth century art. Long after his arrival in Paris in January 1922, he continued to paint his family during summer holidays spent in the family homes in and Majola, . From 1922 onwards he also turned to a range of individuals, family, friends or models with whom he had a close relationship. After joining Giacometti in Paris, Diego became one of his principal sitters. Others who subsequently endured long hours of prolonged scrutiny included Rita, a professional ; Isabel, with whom he had an affair; Annette, who became his wife in 1949; , Isaku Yanaihara and Eli Lotar who were part of Giacometti’s circle in post-war Paris; and, not least, Caroline, a prostitute who became the artist’s final muse. Despite the artist’s own inability to account for his obsession with representing the human form and the appearance of certain individuals, there is no doubt of the artist’s commitment to portraiture (fig 3).

That said, the nature of his engagement with portraiture was far from conventional. One of the paradoxes of Giacometti’s art is that, although intimately involved with people as its subject, characterisation, psychology and individual identity are unusually absent. As the artist confirmed, probing the sitter’s inner landscape was not a concern, ‘I have enough trouble with the outside without bothering with the inside’ . Moreover, in working from observation and memory, there was a tendency for the identity of particular models to migrate: ‘when I draw or sculpt or paint a head from memory it always turns out to be more or less Diego’s head, because Diego’s is the head I’ve done most often from life. And women’s heads tend to become Annette’s head for the same reason.’ Thus, while the artist could claim that the reasons for his immersion in portraiture were obscure, an even more pressing question remains regarding its significance. If Giacometti’s portraits are not primarily about the sitters themselves, what do they represent?

This question brings us back to Giacometti’s artistic imperative to render the appearance of reality. Throughout the artist’s extensive commentaries on the purpose and nature of his art, this is a recurrent theme and one on which he is explicit. A

42 GIACOMETTI • PURE PRESENCE introduction 43 Fig. 2 A close friend of Giacometti, David Thompson spent several years with him at. Fig. 3 A close friend of Giacometti, David Thompson spent several years with him at. Fig. 1 A close friend of Giacometti, Fig. 5 A close friend of Giacometti, Fig. 6 A close friend of Giacometti, David Thompson spent several years David Thompson spent several years David Thompson spent several years with him at. with him at. with him at.

Fig. 4 A close friend of Giacometti, David Thompson spent several years chronology with him at.

1901 1911–15 1920 On September 3 he travels from Innsbruck to the remote Alberto Giacometti is born on October 10 in the Alberto begins to send crayon and pencil drawings to At the end of March Alberto spends some ten days with mountain village of Madonna di Campiglio with Pieter mountain hamlet of Borgon ovo, near Stampa in the his godfather, , the Fauvist painter and Amiet in Oschwand. In May Giovanni, a member of the van Meurs, a sixty-one- year-old archivist. On the following (Graubünden) canton of Switzerland (fig 1). close family friend. (These survive from nearly every year Swiss Art Commission, takes Alberto with him to the day, van Meurs has an attack and dies that night with His father is a Post-Impressionist of his child-hood.) . He discovers the paintings of Jacopo Giacometti at his side. Giacometti, not yet twenty, will painter; his mother Annetta Giacometti-Stampa is the Tintoretto in Venice and visits Padua, where he sees never forget this death and never again sleep without a daughter of one of the valley’s landed families. Augusto In 1913 Alberto produces his first oil painting in his Giotto’s Arena Chapel frescoes. light on. He returns to Stampa by way of Venice. Giacometti, an important Symbolist painter, is a second father’s studio, a still life with apples on a folding table cousin of both parents. (fig 4). From late summer on, Alberto works in Geneva before 1922 setting out for Florence in mid- November. His main On the morning of January 9 Giacometti arrives in Paris. 1902 Shortly after Christmas 1914 he models the heads of impressions there are provided by the Archeological He enrolls in a life class and in the sculpture Birth of brother Diego (d. 1985). Diego and Bruno in Plasticine. Museum, where he sees Egyptian art. He arrives in class of Émile- at the Académie de la Rome on December 21 (fig 6). Grande Chaumière. Bourdelle’s teaching consists of 1904 1915–19 weekly critiques with long lectures amid modeling Birth of sister Ottilia (d. 1937) (fig 2). In the late fall the Alberto attends the Evangelical School in Schiers, near 1921 stands. Giacometti attends the Académie until 1927, family moves to Stampa, to live in the Hôtel Piz Duan , where he is given a small studio. Alberto lives in Rome with the family of Antonio though with frequent month-long absences. From operated by Giovanni’s father. Giacometti, a cousin of his parents. He falls in love with August to October he trains with the Alpine Infantry 1919 the oldest of the six children, the fifteen-year-old in Herisau. 1906 Alberto spends the spring and summer in Stampa and Bianca, and attempts to model a bust of her. The family moves into the second floor of a house nearby Maloja, where he draws and paints in a divisionist 1923–24 opposite the hotel. Giovanni makes an adjacent shed style. In the fall he begins studying art at the École des He takes a small studio in the Via Ripetta, visits In the Montparnasse quarter of Paris, the center of the into a studio (fig 3). Beaux-Arts and École des Arts Industriels in Geneva. museums and churches, and makes drawings after the art world, Alberto makes drawings of a skull for an entire Old Masters. He also attends operas and concerts, and winter. 1907 Painting (under the pointillist David Estoppey) comes reads ancient and modern writers, who inspire him to Birth of brother Bruno. easily to him, and in modeling (under modern sculptor draw. At the end of March or beginning of April he He fraternizes mainly with other Swiss artists, among Maurice Sarkissoff) he is allowed to do as he likes (fig 5). travels to Naples, Paestum, and Pompeii; in July he them , with whom he shares an interest returns to Maloja (fig 7). in tribal art and in . He rents a spacious atelier at 72, avenue Denfert-Rochereau.

46 GIACOMETTI • PURE PRESENCE chronology 47 Fig. 10 A close friend of Giacometti, David Thompson spent several years with him at a close friend.with him at.

Fig. 8 A close friend of Giacometti, David Thompson spent several years Fig. 9 A close friend of Giacometti, with him at a close friend. David Thompson spent several years with him at a close friend.

Fig. 7 A close friend of Giacometti, David Thompson spent several years with him at a close friend.

Fig. 11 A close friend of Giacometti, David Thompson spent several years with him at a close friend.

1901 1915-1919 1927 life in Paris. His sitters are Diego and the professional Alberto Giacometti is born on 10 October at Giacometti attends the Evangelical Secondary school at In spring Giacometti moves into the studio at 46 rue model Rita Gueffier. Giacometti breaks with the in the valley, Switzerland. He is Schiers. In 1919 he enrols at the École des Beaux-Arts Hippolyte-Maindron. Surrealist group. He meets who the first son of the painter Giovanni Giacometti and his and later the École des Arts et Métiers, Geneva. becomes a close friend and model. wife Annetta. His godfather is the Fauve painter Cuno 1929 Amiet. 1920-1921 Giacometti’s ‘flat’ sculptures are exhibited at Jeanne 1937 In May, Giacometti travels with his father to Venice. In Bucher’s gallery. Growing renown results in a one-year Created in Stampa, Giacometti’s portrait of his mother 1902 the autumn he visits Florence, and stays with relatives in contract with the Pierre Loeb gallery. He is introduced is a turning point that anticipates his post-war work. On Birth of Giacometti’s brother Diego Rome until the following summer. Attempting to make into the Surrealist circle. 10 October, Ottilia dies giving birth to Giacometti’s a bust of his hosts’ eldest daughter, Bianca, he nephew, Silvio Berthoud. 1904 abandons the work. 1930 Birth of their sister Ottilia. The family move to a larger Diego joins Giacometti permanently in Paris, assisting 1939 house in nearby Stampa. 1922 him with his artistic practice. Giacometti meets Jean-Paul Sartre for the first time. On In January 1922, Giacometti arrives in Paris to study at the outbreak of war Diego and Giacometti are in 1907 the Académie de la Grande Chaumière. After 1925, he 1931-1932 Maloja. Birth of their youngest brother Bruno. attends intermittently until 1927. Alongside his Surrealist work in Paris, in Stampa and Maloja he continues to work from models. 1940 1910 1925 Fleeing the German invasion of Paris, Giacometti and After Annetta inherits a house in Maloja, the family In February, Diego joins Giacometti in Paris. Increasingly 1932 Diego attempt to escape but eventually return. begin to spend holidays there. Giacometti takes up Giacometti finds the task of copying perceived reality In May, the Galerie Pierre Colle mounts Giacometti’s Giacometti remains there for a year after the armistice is drawing. He works from nature, makes portraits of his impossible. In November he exhibits for the first time at first solo exhibition. signed. Made from memory, his sculptures begin to get family and creates book illustrations. the Salon des Tuileries. smaller. 1933 1913-1914 1926 On 25 June Giovanni dies. Giacometti distances himself 1941-1944 Giacometti makes his first sculpture, a small portrait Inspired by and African and Oceanic sculpture from the Surrealists. Giacometti leaves Paris for Geneva in December 1941. bust of Diego modelled in Plasticine. he works from memory and imagination in Paris. He Remaining in Switzerland for the rest of the war, he continues to make portraits of his family during summer 1934-1935 models miniscule figurines.. In October 1943 he meets visits to Switzerland. From 1934 Giacometti re-engages with making art from his future wife, Annette Arm.

48 GIACOMETTI • PURE PRESENCE chronology 49 The image of man

The years following Giacometti’s first one man show in New York in 1948 saw the expansion of his reputation internationally. Accompanying that exhibition, Jean Paul Sartre’s essay The Quest for the Absolute linked Giacometti’s art with certain existentialist ideas. Focusing on the relation of the figure to space, Sartre saw the work as ‘always mediating between nothingness and being’. That way of viewing Giacometti’s art gained currency, one critic in 1954 describing Giacometti as ‘the artist of .’ This perception was encouraged by the Paris-based circle within which the artist moved. In addition to Sartre, Giacometti was in contact with Simone de Beavoir, and others associated with existentialism.

As well as his regular sitters Annette and Diego, Giacometti made portraits of a range of individuals. These included the writer Jean Genet, the Japanese philosopher Isaku Yanaihara, the Surrealist poet , his later biographer , and the art collector David Thompson. In portraying these sitters, generally Giacometti positioned each figure at the centre of the image. This maximises a sense of what Sartre described as ‘pure presence’. However, this characteristic of Giacometti’s art pre-dated his association with existentialism, and the entirely personal nature of his vision remained distinct from wider philosophical developments. 46 Louis Aragon, 1946 Pencil on paper 525 x 370mm Lefevre Limited

This drawing of the Surrealist poet and novelist belongs to a two-year period, from 1946 to 1947, when Giacometti made numerous studies from life in pencil on paper. Having returned to Paris in 1945, he now resumed contact with a wide circle of individuals, several of whom sat for portraits. In addition to drawings of Diego, Annette and Aragon, he also drew his mother Annetta, the gallery owner Pierre Loeb, and the philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre. He even sketched people seen in the street. As he later observed, his uncertainty during the war years was now replaced by a renewed vigour, ‘thanks to drawing’.

47 Portrait of James Lord, 1954 Pencil on paper 490 x 310mm Thomas Gibson

This drawing depicts the American writer James Lord, whose biography of Giacometti was published in 1985. Lord also wrote a vital account of sitting for the portrait that Giacometti made of him in 1964. As this drawing shows, Lord began visiting the artist’s studio at a much earlier date. The two men met in 1952 and became friends. The drawing is one of several made of Lord in 1954. By this time, Giacometti’s approach to portraiture was established, his preference for frontal poses, as is the case here, a defining characteristic. This direct relationship with his sitters was both intimate and confrontational.

150 GIACOMETTI • PURE PRESENCE YANAIHARA, LOTAR, DIEGO AND OTHER SITTER 151 50 Jean Genet, 1954–5 Oil on canvas 653 x 543mm Tate

The writer Jean Genet was born in 1910. His mother was a prostitute and he was adopted at an early age. After various teenage misdemeanours, he joined the French Foreign Legion. Subsequently discharged, he drifted around Europe. Contact with its underworld led to his eventual imprisonment. While in prison, he composed his first literary efforts, and subsequently wrote numerous novels, three plays and poems. Giacometti was fascinated by Genet from the outset and completed three painted portraits and several drawings of him. In response to his portrait, Genet observed, ‘the face … became such a presence, such a reality and such a terrible impression of relief’.

152 GIACOMETTI • PURE PRESENCE YANAIHARA, LOTAR, DIEGO AND OTHER SITTER 153