Impressionist and Modern Art

We wish to thank the Comité Giacometti for kindly confirming the authenticity of the present lot, which was examined in Paris in June, 2025. It is now recorded in the Alberto Giacometti Database under no. 4729.

Lot Essay:

In 1928, Alberto Giacometti was offered a one-year contract by the Parisian gallery owner, Pierre Loeb. Loeb was the preeminent dealer of the Surrealists, and this opportunity cemented the artist’s entrée to that circle, to whom he had previously been introduced to by André Masson. Giacometti was to remain a friend of Loeb, of whom he made several portraits in 1946, including the present work, as well as in 1949, to prepare an etching that was to illustrate a text written by Loeb on figurative art.

1946 was a pivotal year for Giacometti in his artistic development. In an essay accompanying the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum’s 1974 retrospective on the artist, Reinhold Hohl stated that it was this year that the artist, “…realized that space does not exist merely in front of a figure, but surrounds and separates it from other objects. When we look at something, we see as much of this space (particularly at the sides of the object) as our field of vision permits. The figure seen at a distance appears pronouncedly thin in relation to the absolute standard of our field of vision. As a consequence of its thinness, the figure also appears relatively tall. The change from the tiny representations of the preceding years to the elongated figures of 1946 resulted from new studies—mostly drawings—from nature.” (Alberto Giacometti: A Retrospective Exhibition, New York, 1974, p. 24)

Pierre Loeb Seated in the Office of the Galerie Pierre / Pierre Loeb Seated, 1946, reveals the artist’s experimentation of this time. The recto depicts the dealer in his Paris gallery, sitting in an armchair and smoking a pipe, while the verso presents several sketches of heads. Yet despite the unquestionable likeness, there is a degree of elusiveness to the sitter’s facial features and body, a certain “lack of precision” to his portrayal that highlights its, “forever changing,” fleeting nature (Paul Moorhouse, Giacometti: Pure Presence, London, 2015, p. 150). The real subject matter of the artwork is “…space, this three-dimensional matter which has neither substance nor color, which is a sharply felt presence, but can only be negatively located between and around the objects which obstruct it.” (Alberto Giacometti, 1974, p. 35) The short lines used to compose this space accumulate to form a web between crossing objects, and may stand for the trace of the artist’s eye, “…swiftly and incessantly moving around the composition from one object to another, measuring the distances between them.” (Ibid., p. 35)

As Moorhouse notes with regards to the artist’s portraiture, “To an extreme degree, Giacometti’s art lays bare the complexities and ambiguities of perception, relentlessly exposing the fugitive and elusive nature of visual experience. His portraits are in that sense not simply depictions of individuals. Rather, they are sights that bear evidence of the artist’s struggle to comprehend and express an unfathomable human presence.” (Moorhouse, p. 15). A related drawing from the same year, with Loeb in a similar posture and setting, is held by the Centre Pompidou, Paris. It is drawings such as these that led Giacometti to his post-War sculptural style, which consequently may be characterized as drawing in space.