“This exhibition explores the life and work of the artist Alberto Giacometti, but takes a different path to a traditional retrospective.
Instead of presenting a body of work in isolation, we are showing works by Giacometti alongside those by notable 20th-century artists to show the impact he had on his contemporaries in postwar Paris and the far-reaching influence he had in Britain over the following years.
Alongside pieces by Giacometti, Francis Bacon, Lucian Freud and Eduardo Paolozzi is this small piece of paper. This receipt illustrates another theme of the show: the point where patronage develops into long-lasting friendships between artist and collector.
On a trip to Paris in 1949, art connoisseurs Robert and Lisa Sainsbury – who went on to amass an important collection of Giacometti’s art before founding this venue in the 1970s – bought one of the artist’s paintings in a Parisian gallery.
The picture was unsigned, so the gallery owner suggested that the Sainsburys pop around the corner to the artist’s studio for his signature, but told them that under no circumstances were they to leave it with Giacometti as he would inevitably change or destroy his work. True enough, Giacometti – his own worst critic and never satisfied with the quality of his output – tried to make the Sainsburys leave the picture with him. But they managed to persuade him to sign it, and there a friendship began.
The Sainsburys went on to help mount Giacometti’s first major exhibition at the ICA in London in 1955 and, later that year, asked the great master to sketch their 15-year-old son, David. Giacometti produced five drawings that, inevitably, he claimed were no good at all and refused to sell them to the family.
At this point, Lisa Sainsbury and Giacometti’s wife, Annette, came up with a novel solution. Annette wanted an elegant English raincoat and the two women suggested that if Lisa could send one over from London, it might serve as payment for the sketches. Giacometti finally agreed.
We found this receipt in the Sainsbury records: it’s a document that is testament to both their relationship and the importance of archive material.
From the same source, we have a postcard that Robert and Lisa sent their son. They describe sitting in a Paris cafe with Giacometti, Henry Moore, the American sculptor Alexander Calder, and their wives, debating whether they should allow the young Sainsbury to read Lolita. Everyone present at the cafe had signed the card – it is such a lovely object.”
Calvin Winner is the deputy director of the Sainsbury Centre for Visual Arts, Norwich, and the co-curator of Alberto Giacometti: a Line Through Time. Interview by John Holt. Alberto Giacometti: a Line Through Time runs until 29 August
Instead of presenting a body of work in isolation, we are showing works by Giacometti alongside those by notable 20th-century artists to show the impact he had on his contemporaries in postwar Paris and the far-reaching influence he had in Britain over the following years.
Alongside pieces by Giacometti, Francis Bacon, Lucian Freud and Eduardo Paolozzi is this small piece of paper. This receipt illustrates another theme of the show: the point where patronage develops into long-lasting friendships between artist and collector.
On a trip to Paris in 1949, art connoisseurs Robert and Lisa Sainsbury – who went on to amass an important collection of Giacometti’s art before founding this venue in the 1970s – bought one of the artist’s paintings in a Parisian gallery.
The picture was unsigned, so the gallery owner suggested that the Sainsburys pop around the corner to the artist’s studio for his signature, but told them that under no circumstances were they to leave it with Giacometti as he would inevitably change or destroy his work. True enough, Giacometti – his own worst critic and never satisfied with the quality of his output – tried to make the Sainsburys leave the picture with him. But they managed to persuade him to sign it, and there a friendship began.
The Sainsburys went on to help mount Giacometti’s first major exhibition at the ICA in London in 1955 and, later that year, asked the great master to sketch their 15-year-old son, David. Giacometti produced five drawings that, inevitably, he claimed were no good at all and refused to sell them to the family.
At this point, Lisa Sainsbury and Giacometti’s wife, Annette, came up with a novel solution. Annette wanted an elegant English raincoat and the two women suggested that if Lisa could send one over from London, it might serve as payment for the sketches. Giacometti finally agreed.
We found this receipt in the Sainsbury records: it’s a document that is testament to both their relationship and the importance of archive material.
From the same source, we have a postcard that Robert and Lisa sent their son. They describe sitting in a Paris cafe with Giacometti, Henry Moore, the American sculptor Alexander Calder, and their wives, debating whether they should allow the young Sainsbury to read Lolita. Everyone present at the cafe had signed the card – it is such a lovely object.”
Calvin Winner is the deputy director of the Sainsbury Centre for Visual Arts, Norwich, and the co-curator of Alberto Giacometti: a Line Through Time. Interview by John Holt. Alberto Giacometti: a Line Through Time runs until 29 August
