Alberto GIACOMETTI - Eleven autograph letters signed on his art.

Alberto GIACOMETTI (1901.1966)

Set of eleven autograph letters signed to the artist Constant Rey-Millet.

A total of 45 pages in-8° or in-4°, and 9 envelopes.

From January 2, 1947 to August 4, 1958. Unpublished correspondence.

“I hardly dare tell you that from the day of my return, I started everything again; 4 figures including one life size and 3 busts. »

Extraordinary manuscript set, completely new to the sculptor's bibliography, covering twelve years of friendship between the two men.

These eleven letters, written in dense writing, offer a fascinating insight into the artistic and intimate world of Giacometti. He evokes his friends Picasso, Balthus, Derain, Sartre, Beauvoir, Gruber…; his mother, his wife Annette and his brother Diego; his gallery owners Pierre Matisse and Aimé Maeght; his exhibitions in New York and Basel, and always implicitly, his infinite creative quest: drawings, lithographs, paintings and sculptures; a life's work.

Throughout these pages, and during these twelve years of correspondence – certainly the densest of Giacometti's artistic career – we discover a passionate man, in search of the absolute, humble and persevering, entirely devoted to his Work, to painting and sculpture, toiling nights and days to create Beauty.

The correspondence began on January 2, 1947 while Giacometti was working on his legendary work The Walking Man: “…. I was unhappy for days and I'm not in a good state yet. Cahier d'Art came out with 16 pages of mine, 8 sculptures, and 8 drawings. I hardly dare tell you that from the day of my return, I started everything again; 4 figures including one life size and 3 busts. But I did in 5 days the work that I did before in 6 months and that's where I wanted to get to first; so that things are still a little better and I will, I think, finish them quickly but I really want to do the painting and I work on it a little every day. I'm starting to see how to go about it…” He informs his friend about Parisian artistic life: “ I haven't seen the Balthus exhibition but it didn't work very well, which is what I feared. Very few reviews, mostly bad and very very few sales and not many people who like him (his painting)…. He just has to occupy himself a little more, it seems to me, with painting and less with the subject of girls (…) The day before yesterday Picasso had a moment at Lipp's where he goes to eat quite often at the moment. »

On February 4, 1948, Giacometti told his friend about the success of his exhibition in New York, at Pierre Matisse: “ I finally received news of the exhibition, it has been open since the 19th. Matisse says that it is very beautiful and he sent me a very beautiful catalog with many reproductions, Sartre's text, a small text-letter from me and drawings. He tells me that the criticism was stupid, especially indisposed by the presence of Sartre (he wrote a long text that I really like and Matisse loves it too), too bad for the criticism. He also says that the public doesn't yet know what to think of my things, which seems very understandable to me. » and continues to evoke his infinite work mixing paintings and sculptures: “I started working again. My mother puts me down every day, often morning and afternoon. I start my paintings again every day but I'm still fumbling a lot. I would like to continue this work for months but at the same time I am impatient to resume my sculptures in Paris and I will continue with the paintings too... "

On February 14, 1950, it was no longer a question of art, but of friendship, of support. Indeed, Constant Rey-Millet has just learned that he has been struck by Parkinson's disease (which will take him away at the beginning of 1959): "... I would not dare tell you to have courage and to endure all these diets and deprivations because you have courage (…) I am unhappy that you are sick and of the hard life that you must live my dear Rey-Millet and of the patience that you must have and I will only be happy the day I see you here again…. »

In a long letter dated February 28, 1950, tormented by his work and his quest for creation – “ I have started too many things and I can no longer find a moment of respite especially because I am always next to what I want” – Giacometti is preparing his exhibition at the Kunsthalle in Basel: “…We will go to my mother for a bit, this in May, passing through Basel where I will exhibit around ten sculptures at the same time as Masson . » and evokes his friends Sartre, Beauvoir, Braque, Zervos, Maeght, and Balthus: “Balthus is often absent, looking for houses and whom I see quite rarely, does the sets for Cosi Fan Tutte (…) We see Leiris quite regularly and Sartre who is leaving in a few days with S.( imone) from B. (eauvoir) for Timbuktu. » He also confesses, in this anthological sentence, to making efforts on his alcohol consumption: “… For 2 months I have not drunk a drop of alcohol and very little wine …”

The following summer, in August 1951, Giacometti was asked by his friend to produce a lithograph to be published in a work initiated by Rey-Millet: “ Right away about the lithograph: I do it with pleasure and you don't have to be confused about your "insistence", as you say, but not at all. But what to do? I would like you to give me a subject, or an idea of ​​possible subjects,…” . He keeps him informed of his current creations: “ I work a lot and since this afternoon I think I have made progress in painting drawing and this is because I have had Annette pose again for 3 days. »

A few weeks later, on October 2, Giacometti announced to Rey-Millet that he had produced the requested works: “ I brought 3 lithographs to Mourlot to make proofs of them. » and reports news of Picasso's amorous escapades and the painting of his friend Balthus. “Nothing new in this town. You know that Picasso, it seems, left with his young daughter (very pretty) for North Africa and he seems to have finished a quiet era, land, work. Very, today, beautiful day. Balthus started 2 large paintings. Haven't seen them yet. »

Rey-Millet having received the promised lithographs, the sculptor, from Stampa, is delighted with their common taste on the print depicting the Swiss writer Charles Ferdinand Ramuz: “ I am very happy with what you say about the lithographs and it is the same one that I prefer and I have a few copies printed , so I ordered the other one for the book and I think it is already printed. Someone at Mourlot who knew Ramuz found ours similar. » , and of course, as in each letter, he mentions his work: “I have started to paint a little (…) I will perhaps walk around a little more or draw Annette who works there next door . »

After a month and a half of vacation, back in Paris in December 1951, Giacometti was exhausted (!) and confessed to his friend that he was completely disoriented: “ I was all scattered on the roads, in other landscapes and other environments almost simultaneously. I saw the road in Stampa, the sea and the tree in front of our house, and then I was on a bus to Sisteron and I was having a coffee in St Rémy (…) I no longer knew who I was. » , but you have to work, create, work again and again: “After a week I barely started to work a little. But having completely emptied my workshop, I could no longer see anything of what I had left there. Considering Balthus who has made a lot of progress with his large painting, he will, I believe, do very well. Tzara always there…”

Nearly seven years passed until the following letter, dated February 27, 1958. Rey-Millet had just exhibited his works at the Élysée gallery, provoking the enthusiasm of Giacometti: “ I have seen all the drawings at Maguy Galerie de l'Élysée. Nothing for a long time has given me such pleasure, they are wonderful , wonderful , (…) Several will be at my house and the tribute to Mozart for Annette and the pencil drawing with the trees and the roof with the lightly colored background like the meadow,…”

During the summer of 1958, from Stampa, Giacometti confided his fatigue and his dismay: “ I was so tired that I was no longer able to do anything except stay in bed and read more or less “Les Miserables.” » (…) After all the last months in Paris where I worked all the time without being able to do what I wanted and always sleeping too little, once here I fell completely flat. I had started a landscape with the trees that I see from the house but discouraged or rather finding it absurd to imagine being able to find oneself in their indescribable complication, I would have to start by trying to make a single isolated one. »

The last letter, dated August 4, 1958, is tinged with all the friendship that Giacometti has for Rey-Millet. He knows the latter is suffering and weakened by Parkinson's disease, and expresses his affection and joy upon receiving his drawings: “ I can only tell you again, dear Constant, the immense joy I experienced when I I saw the drawings here for the first time (…) But above all I was happy to be at your home, sitting next to you, but the joy of the drawings is inseparable from that, to find you as you always were. »

Rey-Millet died a few months later, on January 26, 1959, in his native land of La Tour en Faucigny.