Alberto Giacometti

Galerie Maeght, Paris
Galerie Claude Bernard, Paris (acquired from the above)
Joseph H. Hirshhorn, New York (acquired from the above in March 1962)
Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Washington, D.C. (a gift from the above in May 1966. Sale: Sotheby's, New York, 12th May 1993, lot 327)
Private Collection (purchased at the above sale. Sale: Christie's, New York, 2nd May 2006, lot 47)
Purchased at the above sale by the present owner

Washington, D.C., Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Inaugural Exhibition, 1974-75

Abram Lerner et al., The Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, New York, 1974, illustrated pl. 960
Tamara S. Evans (ed.), Alberto Giacometti and America, New York, 1984, p. 104
Bernard Lamarche-Vadel, Alberto Giacometti, Paris, 1984, no. 150, illustrated p. 106 (titled L'Atelier and with incorrect measurements)

The canvas is unlined. There are some very minor nailhead-sized and pinhead-sized spots of retouching visible under ultra-violet light: towards the top and centre of the left edge, one spot towards centre right, and two very small spots in the extreme lower left and right corners. This work is in good condition. Colours: Overall fairly accurate, although the grey tones are less blue and more neutral in the original.
"In response to your inquiry, we are pleased to provide you with a general report of the condition of the property described above. Since we are not professional conservators or restorers, we urge you to consult with a restorer or conservator of your choice who will be better able to provide a detailed, professional report. Prospective buyers should inspect each lot to satisfy themselves as to condition and must understand that any statement made by Sotheby's is merely a subjective, qualified opinion. Prospective buyers should also refer to any Important Notices regarding this sale, which are printed in the Sale Catalogue.
NOTWITHSTANDING THIS REPORT OR ANY DISCUSSIONS CONCERNING A LOT, ALL LOTS ARE OFFERED AND SOLD AS IS" IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE CONDITIONS OF BUSINESS PRINTED IN THE SALE CATALOGUE."

Like so many artists before him, Alberto Giacometti frequently turned to his own creative environment for the subject of his paintings. Bearing the traces of his movements, practices and ideas, the studio is an embodiment of the artist's own persona and artistic instinct; it is the one place in which he and his work are united. Coin d'atelier, therefore, is highly introspective. Giacometti captures the very evidence of his own existence - he presents, in effect, a self portrait, which complements the numerous portraits he executed of Annette, Diego and Caroline around the same time. As with many of his contemporaneous works, the composition has been framed within the edges of the canvas by a painted border, as if cropped and pasted like a photograph. It invites comparison with the many photographs that were taken of the artist's studio during his lifetime (fig. 1).

 

At the same time, the present work is concerned with the act of painting itself, and not with the specificity of objects within the composition. The apparently ordinary subject matter masks an obsession with the relativity of form, contour and space – a problem which vexed Cézanne in each of his still lives. Giacometti is not preoccupied with colour, the rendering of volume or the play of light. All detail is inconsequential. Rather, the minimal palette allows the artist to focus entirely on the vertiginous relationship between form and space, one which affects a distinct sense of claustrophobia. Giacometti's perception of space anguished him during this period. Alluding to the complexity which distinguishes his post-war paintings, he confessed 'I had begun to see heads in the void, in the space that surrounded them' (quoted in Michael Peppiatt, Alberto Giacometti in Postwar Paris, New Haven & London, 2001, p. 7).

Fig. 1, Giacometti in his studio, circa 1960. Photograph by Ernst Scheidegger