Alberto Giacometti

Annette Giacometti, Paris

Sale: Christie's, New York, November 13, 1996, lot 49

Acquired at the above sale

Alberto Giacometti, 1901-1966 (exhibition catalogue), Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art, Edinburgh; Kunsthalle, Vienna, 1996, no. 207, illustration of another cast p. 184

L'Atelier d'Alberto Giacometti; Collection de la Fondation Alberto et Annette Giacometti (exhibition catalogue), Centre national d'art et de culture Georges Pompidou, Paris, 2007, illustration of the painted plaster version p. 149

The bronze bears a mottled green-brown patina. The sculpture is structurally sound, and the figure stands straight in alignment with the base. This work is in excellent condition.
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.
NOTWITHSTANDING THIS REPORT OR ANY DISCUSSIONS CONCERNING CONDITION OF A LOT, ALL LOTS ARE OFFERED AND SOLD "AS IS" IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE CONDITIONS OF SALE PRINTED IN THE CATALOGUE.

Femme debout is an example one of the most important motifs of the artist's career - that of the solitary standing female figure. Giacometti first explored the subject in the 1940s, and the theme quickly became a dominant preoccupation until the end of his career.   By the 1950s and 1960s, Giacometti exaggerated the verticality of his standing women, eliminating the voluptuous contours that are classically associated with the female body.   Standing at attention for time eternal, these stoic forms were symbols of strength amidst the uncertainty of the Cold War era.  Giacometti exhibited this subject to much critical acclaim in 1956 with his series, Femmes de Venise, and the present work is a variant of that aesthetic.  Femme debout, which the artist first rendered in clay in 1961, is a severely narrowed and elongated version of the canonical standing woman, taken to a new and dramatic extreme.

James Lord describes the ambitions and artistic process of the artist: "Seeing for him was equivalent to being, and it is obviously impossible for a man to make life. And yet Alberto had no other ambition. When working on a female figure in clay his fingers would run up and down the sculpture, pinching, gouging, scraping, caressing, as if they responded to a will of their own, independent of the incidental artist. Every pinch or caress transformed the figure, of course, but that was not his purpose.... he felt that the work did hold it against him unless he sacrificed himself entirely for its sake. And that's what he did" (James Lord, "Alberto at Work," Alberto Giacometti, 1901-1966 (exhibition catalogue), National Galleries of Scotland, Edinburgh, 1996, p. 41).