Alberto GIACOMETTI - Original Print - Etching - Untitled (A poem in each Paul Eluard book)

Artist : Alberto GIACOMETTI  (1901-1966)

Title : Untitled, 1955

Medium : Etching on thick BFK Rives paper​

Type of work : Original print signed by hand by the artist in pencil lower right, numbered 2/2, annotated "Artist's proof", and dedicated "For Louis Broder very affectionately". This work is an additional wide-margined edition of illustration 12 of the tribute book to Eluard "a poem in each book" published in 1956 in 120 copies. In the book illustration 12 is positioned next to Paul Eluard's poem "Facile" taken from the eponymous collection (1935). The work offered here comes from the album called "Album A", Reprinted from the book in 20 copies. Each album contains, like the book, 16 prints (including this work by Alberto Giacometti) but they were printed with wide margins and unlike the prints in the book, all signed or monogrammed by the artists. The album we have was the property of the publisher Louis BRODER. It stands out from the others because it is enriched in addition to the 16 large-margined illustrations with many other prints collected by the publisher throughout his collaboration with the artists on this book.

Dimensions : 44.5 x 32.5 cm (Picture 13 x 13.5 cm)

Condition : Good

Provenance : Genevieve and Jean Paul Kahn collection

Expert's comment : Alberto Giacometti met the surrealist group in 1929. Coming from the puritanical Swiss environment, it was a liberation for the artist that was as personal as it was artistic. Relations are particularly strong with André Breton, but he fascinates the poets of the group, including Paul Eluard, with his ability to dialogue with talent for literature and poetry. No doubt they must have repeatedly spoken of women, of this symbiosis that can exist between two beings mentioned in the last line of the poem "you are the resemblance". Alberto Giacometti to illustrate "easy", gives us as usual, a work that seems sketchy but suggestive. Didn't he conceive of another setting for this mad love than this studio, one of the artist's favorite subjects? As for Paul Eluard, we know that he said that it was easy to be faithful with Nusch.

The Album and the Book :

Explanatory photo 1: Comparison between Album A offprint of "a poem in each book" printed in 20 copies and the book "a poem in each book" printed in 120 copies.
Explanatory photo 2: Album A offprint of 20 copies having belonged to the publisher Louis Broder contained in a gray canvas box with a label stuck on the back and the first cover.
Explanatory photo 3: Proof of printing of Album A which indicates the maximum number of copies of prints contained in total in the 20 albums as well as the names of the artists. It is annotated in red pencil "Editor's copy B" because it belonged to Louis Broder.
Explanatory photo 4: Original print signed and printed with wide margins by Pablo Picasso, contained in album A
Explanatory photo 5: Original print signed and printed with large margins by Max Ernst, contained in album A
Explanatory photo 6: Book "a poem in each book" printed in 120 copies, containing the 16 prints unsigned by the artists (signatures on the proof of printing of the book)
Explanatory photo 7: Print by Pablo Picasso on double page, unsigned contained in the book "a poem in each book"
Explanatory photo 8: Print by Max Ernst unsigned contained in the book "a poem in each book"

To discover in pictures the history of Album A and the rare prints it contains, click on the video below !

Biography of the artist : Alberto Giacometti is a Swiss painter and sculptor born in 1901 in Borgonovo. He joined the Beaux Arts in Geneva early on, then trained in Antoine Bourdelle's studio at the Académie de la Grande Chaumière in Montparnasse.
In 1926, he moved to Paris and became fascinated by cubism, African art and ancient sculptures. Quickly, he became interested in the series of heads which would exclude him from the surrealist movement in 1935. In 1948, Alberto Giacometti met Pierre Matisse and from this artistic relationship was born his greatest works, which would later become world famous and which would be exhibited in the greatest museums of modern art.​

History of the book and the album : We advise you to read our blog "THE ALBUM OF LOUIS BRODER: A LEGENDARY PORTFOLIO".

About Paul ELUARD : We advise you to read our blog "PAUL ELUARD: THE CHOSEN ONE OF THE ART".

A few lines from the poem:
You get up the water unfolds
You go to bed the water blooms
You are the water diverted from its depths You are the earth that takes root
And on which everything is established
You make bubbles of silence in the desert of noises
You sing nocturnal hymns on the strings of the rainbow You are everywhere you abolish all the roads
...