Homme (Apollon)

Details

Alberto Giacometti (1901-1966)
Homme (Apollon)
signed, dated and numbered '1/6 Alberto Giacometti 1929' (on the back)
bronze with brown patina
Height: 15 3/4 in. (40 cm.)
Conceived in 1929 and cast in 1954

Provenance

Pierre Matisse Gallery, New York.
Dr & Mrs Frank Stanton, by whom acquired from the above in the mid-1950s, and thence by descent.

Literature

M. Leiris, 'Alberto Giacometti', in Documents, September 1929, no. 4, p. 214 (the plaster version illustrated).
P. Bucarelli, Giacometti, Rome, 1962, no. 11, p. 76 (another cast illustrated p. 95).
J. Dupin, Alberto Giacometti, Paris, 1962, (the plaster version illustrated p. 201).
Exh. cat., Modern Sculpture from the Joseph H. Hirshhorn Collection, New York, 1962, no. 166, p. 215 (another cast illustrated p. 110).
F. Meyer, Alberto Giacometti: Eine Kunst existentieller Wirklichkeit, Stuttgart, 1968, p. 60.
C. Huber, Alberto Giacometti, Paris, 1970, p. 124 (another cast illustrated p. 28)
R. Hohl, Alberto Giacometti, Lausanne, 1971, p. 52 (another cast illustrated).
A. Lerner, ed., The Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, New York, 1974, no. 342, p. 695 (another cast illustrated p. 246).
Exh. cat., Gauguin to Moore, Primitivism in Modern Sculpture, Toronto, 1981, no. 102, p. 230 (another cast illustrated p. 231).
B. Lamarche-Vadel, Alberto Giacometti, Paris, 1984, p. 44, no. 61 (another cast illustrated p. 44).
C. Juliet, Giacometti, Paris, 1985, p. 20 (another cast illustrated).
C. Klemm, ed., Die Sammlung der Alberto Giacometti-Stiftung, Zurich, 1990, no. 22, pp. 153-154 (another cast illustrated p. 67).
Y. Bonnefoy, Alberto Giacometti, A biography of his work, Paris, 1991, no. 156, pp. 163-164 (the plaster version illustrated p. 164).
G. Didi-Huberman, Le cube et le visage, Autour d’une sculpture d’Alberto Giacometti, Paris, 1993, p. 82 (dated ‘1930’).
A. Schneider, ed., Alberto Giacometti: Sculpture, Paintings, Drawings, Munich, 1994, pp. 15 & 56 (another cast illustrated pl. 17 & p. 57, the plaster version illustrated p. 15).
T. Dufrêne, Alberto Giacometti: Les Dimensions de la réalité, Geneva, 1994, pp. 24.
J. Soldini, Alberto Giacometti, La somiglianza introvabile, Milan, 1998, pp. 39 & 238.
A. González, Alberto Giacometti: Works, Writings, Interviews, Barcelona, 2006, p. 26 (the plaster version illustrated p. 27).
A. Schneider, ed., Alberto Giacometti: Sculpture, Paintings, Drawings, Munich, Berlin, London and New York, 2008, no. 17, p. 96 (another cast illustrated).
The Alberto and Annette Giacometti Foundation Database, no. 3405.

Exhibited

New York, Museum of Modern Art, Alberto Giacometti, June - October 1965, no. 5, p. 115 (illustrated p. 34); this exhibition later travelled to The Art Institute of Chicago, November - December 1965; the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, January - February 1966; and The San Francisco Museum of Art, March - April 1966.

Special Notice

These lots have been imported from outside the EU for sale using a Temporary Import regime. Import VAT is payable (at 5%) on the Hammer price. VAT is also payable (at 20%) on the buyer’s Premium on a VAT inclusive basis. When a buyer of such a lot has registered an EU address but wishes to export the lot or complete the import into another EU country, he must advise Christie's immediately after the auction.

Sale Room Notice

Please note that the present work was acquired by Dr & Mrs Frank Stanton in the mid-1950s, and not as stated in the printed catalogue.

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Anna Povejsilova

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Lot Essay

Homme (Apollon) belongs to a series of sculptures that, in the late 1920s, would bring the work of Alberto Giacometti to the attention of the Surrealists. In 1928, a year before the creation of the present work, Giacometti’s Gazing Head had captured the eyes of André Masson and of the ‘dissident’ group of Surrealists that had gathered around Georges Bataille at the rue Blomet. From that moment onwards, Giacometti’s sculptures would evolve to embrace an abstract, geometric style nevertheless imbued with a strong evocative power that would excite the mind of the Surrealists. Echoing the post- Cubist style of Jacques Lipchitz – to whom the artist was very close at the time – and foreseeing the element of the cage, which would acquire growing importance in the years to come, Homme (Apollon) captures Giacometti’s position at the end of the 1920s, as the abstraction of his works started turning into the haunting forms of his Surreal works.

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