PARIS.- On 18 October at Christie’s, Avant-Garde(s) Including Thinking Italian – the biggest auction of its category – takes center stage again in Paris. The highlight of the auctions held on the occasion of Art Basel Paris, Avant-Garde (s) Including Thinking Italian, will feature a major work: Alberto Giacometti’s Buste sur la selle de l’atelier. Painted in 1964, this painting was produced by Alberto Giacometti when he was at the peak of his artistic powers – in the final years of his life, when he placed painting on an equal footing with sculpture. Successively owned by Pierre Matisse and Ernst Beyeler, the work has a provenance that ranks among the most significant in the history of 20th-century art. Buste sur la selle de l’atelier is being offered for sale with an estimate of 2 to 3 million euros.

AN ARTIST AT THE TOP

During the postwar period, Alberto Giacometti produces some of his best-known works. Having returned to Paris, he exhibits in America, and gains access to all of the resources necessary to produce the casts he wishes to have. His work then attains unparalleled recognition. In January 1964, he is awarded the International Painting Prize by the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum. On July 28 of that same year, the Fondation Marguerite et Aimé Maeght inaugurates the courtyard and hall that bear his name. The following year, three retrospectives bring him worldwide recognition: at the Tate in London, at MoMA in New York and at the Louisiana Museum in Copenhagen. While Alberto Giacometti is celebrated as one of the major sculptors of the 20th century, the 1960s are also a time when he considers painting to be on a par with sculpture, and produces a body of work with no aesthetic equivalent in modern art. Finally, 1964 is the year in which Eli Lotar – Giacometti’s last male model – begins to pose for his busts. Buste sur la selle de l’atelier represents one such bust in completion, and is emblematic of the final years of Alberto Giacometti’s artistic career.

HISTORICAL PROVENANCE

Buste sur la selle de l’atelier is also a work with exceptional provenance. The fact that it went from the collections of Pierre Matisse to those of Ernst Beyeler is proof enough. In addition to being key figures in the art of the century, those two men are exceptional connoisseurs of a body of work which they supported, sometimes decisively. Pierre Matisse, who hosts Giacometti’s first solo exhibition in New York in 1948, plays a key role in his career. Alberto Giacometti’s long letter to him, reproduced in full in the MoMA exhibition catalogue attests to the depth of the dialogue between them. Ernst Beyeler, a fervent admirer of Alberto Giacometti, plays a key role in the creation of the Alberto Giacometti Foundation in Zurich. More than 350 works pass through his Basel gallery, and around 15 of the most important ones become part of the Fondation Beyeler’s collection. In 2007, when the foundation celebrates its 10th anniversary with a special exhibition, Buste sur la selle de l’atelier is one of the works selected for display.

“We are honored to be able to unveil this important oil painting by Alberto Giacometti, Buste sur la selle de l’atelier, painted in 1964, which will be one of the key works in our forthcoming Avant(s)-Garde Including Thinking Italian auction on October 18th in Paris – in parallel with the Art Basel Paris fair. Originally owned by the famous New York art dealer Pierre Matisse, then by his daughter Jacqueline Matisse-Monnier, this painting has not reappeared on the market for nearly 20 years. The work invites us to take an intimate tour of the artist’s studio and to contemplate one of the last sculptures he made before his death, the famous bust of the renowned avant-garde photographer Elie Lotar.” Antoine Lebouteiller, Director of the Impressionist and Modern Art Department, Christie’s France.