Alberto Giacometti
Self portrait
1920
Oil on canvas ; 41.0 x 30.0 cm
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(*)The Graubünden Art Museum presented a portrait of the world-famous artist Alberto Giacometti (1901-1966) in his younger years. Visitors discovered a large quantity of works, some never exhibited before.
“Alberto Giacometti. Portrait of the artist as a young man” was the first public exhibition ever dedicated to the early works of the Bregagliotto artist.
“It took three years of research,” Stephan Kunz, the artistic director of the Graubünden Art Museum, said during the presentation of the exhibition to the media. He said he was enthusiastic about the work. “We are showing how Alberto Giacometti became an artist,”[…] starting at the age of 12.
The exhibition began with the works of 12-year-old Giacometti and extends to his time in Paris in the 1920s. (It was also intended as a tribute to the Bernese auctioneer and art collector Eberhard W. Kornfeld, who died on 13 April that year at almost one hundred years old.)
A total of 160 works were on display, mainly paintings, as well as 40 documents, including postcards, letters and photographs. About twenty works had never been publicly displayed in an exhibition. From a spatial point of view, the exhibition was divided into different chapters. The works show members of the artist's family, of course Alberto's father and patron, Giovanni, as well as landscapes and still lifes.
For Alberto Giacometti it was clear from an early age that he wanted to become an artist. The boy with the cute shaggy hair painted and drew first in his native Val Bregaglia and later in Schiers in Prättigau, during his high school studies.
Stays in Geneva and Rome followed, and he also dealt very intensively with works of art history.
The thread-like sculptures came later
However, the thread-like sculptures, which nowadays fetch dizzying prices at auctions, were not on display in that exhibition in Chur.
Giacometti dedicated himself to this art only in the period following the Second World War.
The artist from Stampa in Val Bregaglia was born on 10 October 1901 in Borgonovo, the first of four children. His parents were Annetta Giacometti-Stampa and the painter, designer and printer Giovanni Giacometti. His brother Diego was a sculptor and designer, while his brother Bruno was a renowned architect. The least known of the artistic family was his sister Ottilie, a capable seamstress who died at just 33 years old.
(The exhibition “Alberto Giacometti. Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man” at the Chur Art Museum will remain open until November 19th. It was created in close collaboration with the Zurich Art Museum and the Giacometti Foundation in Paris.)