Annette Giacometti (the artist’s wife), Paris
Thomas Gibson Fine Art, London
Private collection, since 1979
London, Thomas Gibson Fine Art, Thirteen Bronzes: Alberto Giacometti, 1977, no. 6, ill. p. 33
Andros, Museum of Contemporary Art-Basil and Elise Goulandris Foundation, Alberto Giacometti, 28 June – 6 September 1992, no. 73, p. 122, ill. p. 123 and on the cover
Andros, Museum of Contemporary Art-Basil and Elise Goulandris Foundation, Classics of Modern Art, 27 June – 19 September 1999, pp. 128-131, ill. pp. 129, 131
Peter Selz (introd.), Alberto Giacometti, New York, The Museum of Modern Art, 1965, 69, no. 53 (another cast illustrated)
Franz Meyer, Alberto Giacometti: Eine Kunst existentieller Wirklichkeit, Frauenfeld and Stuttgart, Huber Verlag, 1968, p. 196 (another cast illustrated)
Reinhold Hohl, Alberto Giacometti, Lausanne, Clairefontaine, 1971, p. 119 (another cast illustrated)
Reinhold Hohl, Alberto Giacometti: Sculpture, Painting, Drawing, London, Thames and Hudson, 1972, p. 119
Bernard Lamarche-Vadel, Alberto Giacometti, Paris, Tabard, 1984, p. 144 (another cast illustrated)
Peter Beye, Alberto Giacometti, exhibition catalogue, Nationalgalerie Berlin, 9 October 1987 – 3 January 1988, pp. 104, 112, 142 (another cast illustrated)
Valerie Fletcher, Alberto Giacometti, 1901-1965, exhibition catalogue, Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Washington D.C., 15 September – 13 November 1988, p. 45 (another cast illustrated)
Kosme Maria de Barañano, Alberto Giacometti, exhibition catalogue, Madrid, Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía, Madrid, 14 November 1990 – 15 January 1991, p. 93 (another cast illustrated)
Yves Bonnefoy, Alberto Giacometti: Biographie d’une oeuvre, Paris, Flammarion, 1991, pp. 396-397, p. 400, no. 375, ill. p. 400
Suzanne Pagé, Alberto Giacometti: Sculptures, peintures, dessins, exhibition catalogue, Musée d’Art Moderne de la ville de Paris, 30 November 1991 – 15 March 1992, p. 397 (another cast illustrated)
Thierry Dufrêne, Alberto Giacometti, Portrait de Jean Genet: Le scribe captif, Paris, Adam Biro, 1994, p. 168 (another cast illustrated)
Casimiro di Crescenzo, Alberto Giacometti: Sculpture, dipinti, disegni, exhibition catalogue, Milan, Palazzo Reale, 26 January – 2 April 1995, p. 24 (another cast illustrated)
Toni Stooss and Patrick Elliott, Alberto Giacometti 1901- 1965, exhibition catalogue, Vienna, Kunsthalle, 24 February – 5 May 1996, p. 78 (another cast illustrated)
James Lord, Alberto Giacometti, A Biography, New York, 1997, p. 355 (another cast illustrated)
David Sylvester, Looking at Giacometti, London, Holt Paperbacks, 1997, pp. 85, 117 (another cast illustrated)
Jean Soldini, Alberto Giacometti: La Somiglianza introvabile, Milan, Jaca Book, 1998, p. 136 (another cast illustrated)
Christian Klemm, Alberto Giacometti, exhibition catalogue, New York, The Museum of Modern Art, 11 October 2001 – 8 January 2002, pp. 218, 221 (another cast illustrated)
In 1956 Giacometti was chosen to represent France at the Venice Biennale. He immediately began working at his small studio by shaping the clay around a frame made of just one rod, in order to form a woman’s filamentous figure. The ten plaster sculptures to be produced were called Women of Venice, as a tribute to the place intended for the exhibition. Two years later, Giacometti decided to cast nine of them in bronze, producing six copies each. Thus, the Women of Venice, all formed from a single piece of clay, neither completely identical nor completely unlike to each other, are variants of the same female figure.
In fact, they have many things in common: the filamentous silhouette, the position of the hands along the body, the head, proportionally smaller than the rest of the anatomy, the large and joined legs, making them bending forward. The hieratic appearance, the excessive length of the body, the lack of expression on the faces elevate them at the level of idols, inevitably reminiscent of Cycladic art and, to a lesser extent, Egyptian art. Here, we stand before a feminine ideal with the most absolute, most enigmatic and most impersonal significance as well. Of course, Giacometti was not trying to create a new model of beauty, but rather to conceive the woman based on his imagination, depending on whether he was looking for a mistress, a girlfriend, a mother or just a human being.
Their differences are visible regarding the height of the silhouette, the opening of the hands compared to the rest of the body, the shape of the face and hair, the size of the breasts and the curvature of the abdomen, as well as the thickness of the base supporting them. All these differentiations individualize each figure and make her no longer an image or a symbol, but a real, human woman with her own special characteristics.
The Woman of Venice V is one of the most realistic creations of the set. Smaller in comparison to the others, it stands out with its voluptuous curves: the waist is clearly distinguished, the breasts, hips and buttocks are emphasized, her gender shows off.
The head is smaller and narrower than the others, but with much more intense detail, as is the case with the ponytail formed at the base of the neck. The treatment of the plaster with a knife, faithfully given to the bronze version, looks smoother than in other versions, as if Giacometti wanted to show her less emaciated, with a body less damaged than that of her sisters’. But no matter how, following careful consideration, she seems fleshier, even maternal to us, she does not cease to bear the same wounds as the other Women of Venice and therefore in all Giacometti’s sculpture.
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