Giacometti exhibit at the Musée Maillol

Saturday October 13 was extremely warm. High of 27C and sunny. While it's great to see everyone out in the cafés enjoying the sun, it is a bit disturbing as last year when we were here in October it was around 16C. Alain went out in the morning to pick up some provisions while I was finishing the blog. He took a few pictures of the market area on Saint-Germain.

Musical entertainment beside our favourite cheese shop

Outdoor market which operates three days a week beside a number of food/wine/cheese stores

We then headed out on this beautiful, sunny morning. We stopped for a coffee at Strada Café which is across from this lovely building with the statues on the front and side.

Building across with Strada Café

Merek, a barista who had been at the Café for a number of years is always up on the art scene

We continued our walk down Saint-Germain and then Rue de Grenelle until we reached the Musée Maillol. We went to see the exhibit: Giacometti: Entre Tradition et Avant-Garde (Between Tradition and the Avant-Garde). The exhibit focused on an overview of his work complemented by works from the major classical and modern sculptors of his time. There were more than 50 sculptures by Giacometti and 25 works by other major artists such as Rodin, Bourdelle, Maillol, Brancusi, Lipchitz and Zadkine. The exhibit highlights Giacometti's relations with these artists at each stage of the development of his style. (Note: I will only note the name of the sculpture in the caption, if it is not done by Giacometti)

Poster for exhibit

Alberto Giacometti (1901-1966) was the eldest son of a well-known post-impressionist painter Giovanni Giacometti. He was born in the Italian-speaking region of Switzerland and began his artistic training early. He made his first bust from life, at 13, using his brother Diego as his model. His entire family posed regularly for him. In 1920-21, he travel to Italy where he discovers Egyptian art. In 1922, he left for Paris to attend classes led by Antoine Bourdelle. In 1929 he met Jean Cocteau and André Masson, who introduced him to the Surrealist circle. In 1935, he separated from the Surrealists and began a solitary study of heads using Diego and the young Rita Gueyfier as his models. He lived in Geneva during the war and returned in Paris in September 1945, where Diego had kept his studio unchanged. In 1948, he had his first solo exhibit at the Pierre Matisse Gallery in New York. He represented France at the Venice Biennale in 1956. In 1966, he died suddenly and is buried in the cemetery in Borgonova, Switzerland.

Tête de Diego, enfant (vers 1914-15)

Tête (Grand tête de la mère (1918-25)

Jacques Lipchitz - Baigneuse III 1917 -- Lipchitz always claimed that he never ceased being a cubist. Giacometti made cubist works over a short period of time.

Figure (dite cubiste) 1926

Ossip Zadkine- Accordéoniste 1922-26

Composition (dite cubiste) II

La Couple 1927-- the influence of African art is visible in this sculpture which he exhibited in 1927 at the Salon des Tuileries alongside works from Brancusi and Zadkine, whom Giacometti admired

Tête de Femme (Flora Mayo) 1926-Flora Mayo was a young American sculptor who attended Bourdelle's classes at the same time as Giacometti

Tête crâne -vers 1934

Couple (1925-27) and Henri Laurens Verre et bouteille 1919 (Glasses and bottles are objects from everyday life that were constantly used by the Cubists. Laurens regularly depicted them- often with stone highlighted with colour). Giacometti paid homage to his friend Laurens in an article that he wrote in 1945. " I always sense the sculpture of Laurens as a light sphere that delights me")

Giacometti copied antique sculptures from very early on, an exercise that he practiced constantly until the end of his career.

Femme assise 1956

Aristide Maillol -Jeune fille agenouillée1900

Auguste Rodin- Les bourgeois de Calais 1885 This piece was commissioned by the City of Calais to recall an episode of the Hundred Years War that took place in 1347. Each figure had a particular attitude.

From the early 1950s, Giacometti worked on more complex compositions with several figures. These works, which he associated with the memory of a clearing or a forest, suggested a landscape where trees are represented by silhouettes of women. The Rodin piece above marked a radical change in the treatment of the plinth which is totally fused with the base of the figures instead of isolating them, giving the impression of a group petrified in its movement. This piece had an influence on Giacometti.

La Forêt 1950

Quatre femmes sur socle 1950

In 1935, Giacometti distanced himself from Surrealism and returned to working from life. The study of the head from life, had become a preoccupation. He hired a professional model (Rita Gueyfier) with whom he began new head studies every day.

Tête de femme (Rita) 1938

1936

Giacometti met Annette Arm in Geneva in 1943 and they married in 1949. From 1946, when he moved back to Paris until his death, Annette was one of Giacometti's favourite models. The number of sculptures, drawings and paintings he made of her is only comparable to those he made of his brother Diego.

Petit buste d'Annette vers 1946

Simone de Beauvoir 1946

Tête de Diego 1953

Antoine Bourdelle- Krishnamurti- première étude 1927-28--- Bourdelle had a very strong bond with Beethoven and he produced over 100 works (drawings and sculptures) of the musician.

Tête d'homme vers 1948-1950

Tête d'homme vers 1962-65

In 1926, Giacometti moved to a tiny studio that was barely 23m squared at 46 rue Hippolyte-Maindron in the artists' quarter in Montparnasse, where he worked for the rest of his life. Many famous photographers came to take photos of his studio, which was littered with drawings and sculptures.

Robert Doisneau- Alberto Giacometti posant dans l'atelier, Paris 1957

There was a section on the depiction of female figures. Many were done of his wife Annette.

Antoine Bourdelle- Madeleine Charnaux, statuette 1917

Femme debout (Poseuse II) vers 1954

The emblematic sculpture of the Surrealist period, the Woman Walking, was presented for the first time in a preliminary version without a base in 1933 with the title of "Mannequin". It was completed then by the handle of a cello as a head and two mobile arms that ended with a flower and features. In 1936, Giacometti decided to remove the Surrealist elements definitively and to add a plinth. The work presented in this exhibit is the original plaster of the new version. The mannequin was a recurrent theme for the Surrealists (Man Ray, De Chirico), but the standing woman and walking figure are two central themes in the work of Giacometti. The front is quite reminiscent of Egyptian statuary.

Femme de Venise III 1956-- from Venice Biennale where they were exhibited in 1956

Ossip Zadkine- Vénus Cariatide 1919

Richard Winther- Alberto Giacometti travaillant à un plâtre dans l'atelier 1948

Denise Colomb- 1948

Giacometti began to take an interest in the representation of movement in the 1930s. After the war, this theme became dominant. Between 1947-51, he sculpted different versions of men and women walking, isolated or in groups.

Homme qui marche II 1960

Copies d'après Rodin: Homme qui marche vers 1921

It was a wonderful exhibit-- also a great companion to the Miró exhibit we saw yesterday. Miró and Giacometti knew and respected each other's work and were associated for a time with the Surrealist movement (both were friends with André Masson), but each went their own creative ways. Also both came from other countries, but studied and lived in Paris for a portion of their lives. Both exhibited at Pierre Matisse's gallery in New York. We also enjoyed how the works of Giacometti were placed squarely in the context of both his teachers, classical sculptors and his peers of the Avant-Garde.

After the exhibit we went to the Beaupassage a few minutes away which is a new passageway with a number of great bakeries and other food establishments. We had a sandwich from La Boulangerie de Thierry Marx and a coffee from % Arabica.

Lots of folks enjoying treats at Beaupassage

Great coffee stand for %Arabica

In one of the passageways to the street

Flowers are very beautifully displayed in Paris

We then walked over to Le Bon Marché, the department store with the separate food building. The store was having a collaboration with Los Angeles and had a skateboarder performing. The store is worth a visit for its beautiful interiors and displays. We didn't spend a lot of time there as it was very crowded with Saturday shoppers.

Skateboarder at Bon Marché

Adjusting a display

We then headed to the Marais for dinner at Tavline, a fabulous Israeli restaurant where we had eaten last year. They just do two sittings at 7:30 and 9:30. We had chosen the earlier sitting, which was a good thing, as we were both exhausted.