‘Tête qui regarde’ and the other disc-shaped sculptures are Giacometti’s first entirely independent and novel contribution to modern sculpture (see GS 010, GS 011, GS 169). The reduction of the face to a horizontal and a vertical element echoes Ferdinand Hodler’s ‘Parallelism’, with its symbolist amplification of the two fundamental orientations. The disembodied membrane that merely modulates light excited the Surrealists, who saw in it a projection from the world of inner imaginings.

Material

Marble

Dimensions

41 x 37 x 8 cm

Creditline

Kunst Museum Winterthur, on permanent loan from the Alberto Giacometti-Stiftung, 1976

This work is on long-term loan to the Kunst Museum Winterthur

Object number

GS 012

Signature

inscr. on plinth, back left: Alberto Giacometti

Provenance

• Kunst Museum Winterthur, ab 1976, Dauerleihgabe
• Alberto Giacometti-Stiftung (Sammlung), Zürich, 16.12.1965, Übernahme
• Alberto Giacometti-Syndikat, Oktober 1963, Kauf
• Galerie Beyeler, Kauf, 1963
• Sammlung G. David Thompson, Pittsburgh, Kauf, 1956
• Galerie Beyeler, Basel, Kauf
• Galerie Maeght, Paris, Kauf
• Alberto Giacometti