Mid-20th Century Art – Alberto Giacometti

I recently had the above 1965 Giacometti print (of his model Caroline) reframed – a wonderful image that seems fitting for a 1960″s ranch house.  Hope and Feathers Framing in Amherst, MA did a fabulous job (see my last image for the frame, etc).

Who was the artist Alberto Giacometti?

From the web-site, Fondation Alberto et Annette Giacometti:

“Alberto Giacometti (1901 – 1966) grew up in Switzerland in the Val Bregaglia alpine valley, a few kilometers from the Swiss-Italian border. His father, Giovanni Giacometti (1868-1933) was an impressionist painter esteemed by Swiss collectors and artists. He shared his thoughts with his son on art and the nature of art. Alberto Giacometti produced his first oil painting (Still Life with Apples, circa 1915) and first sculpted bust (Diego, circa 1914-1915) in his father”s studio at the age of fourteen.”  His brother, Diego, (1902 – 1985) was also an artist.

Giacometti was a painter, print-maker and  sculptor, as well as a creator of decorative objects, bas-reliefs, and so forth.  What influenced him seemed to be a wide-range of things – from primitive cultures to mid 20th century European philosophy.

An example of small objects:

In decorative arts, he created items for the interior designer Jean Michel Frank (from Christie”s web-site):

ALBERTO GIACOMETTI (1901-1966) FOR JEAN-MICHEL FRANK (1895-1941)
A PAIR OF “CALABASH” TABLE LAMPS, 1939

Again, from the Giacometti web-site, about this type of print/painting:

“It is the case for this painting, in which the face visibly takes on more importance: while the background and the body of the model are barely sketched with light strokes, the face is worked on insistently and repeatedly until becoming dense and black, sculpted like an African mask. Moreover, it is set off by an ochre “halo” that strongly contrasts with the rest of the white background.”

“Caroline, a pretty woman with a complex personality who hung out with criminals and posed from 1960 onwards, was presented in three very different aspects: a remote goddess, a dangerous and totemic figure, and a sculptural beauty.From 1951 onward, he produced lithographic plates which were separately published by the Maeght Gallery. Giacometti was always in favour of disseminating his work through quality editions. Lithography involving the transfer of a drawing onto a zinc plate offered the advantage of requiring lightweight equipment that was easy to handle: special paper and a lithographic pencil.”