Created towards the end of Giacometti’s time as a member of the Surrealist movement, ‘Cube’ is perhaps the most enigmatic of his works. Designed as a polyhedron with twelve facets, it was described by the artist himself as his only abstract sculpture, though he added that he had actually intended it as a monumental ‘head’.

At the end of the 1930s, Giacometti scratched lines into one of the two known plaster versions of ‘Cube’ (see GS 298). Today, only this first bronze version from 1959 bears these marks. They hint at a depiction of the studio and a self-portrait.

After the cast was made, the lines in the plaster were effaced.

Material

Bronze

Dimensions

95 x 54 x 59 cm

Creditline

Kunsthaus Zürich, Alberto Giacometti-Stiftung, 1965

Object number

GS 025

Signature

inscr. on front b. l.: Alberto Giacometti 1/2

Further information

Ex. 1/2

Provenance

• Zürcher Kunstgesellschaft | Kunsthaus Zürich, frühestens ab 1965, Leihgabe
• Alberto Giacometti-Stiftung (Sammlung), Zürich, frühestens ab 1965, Übernahme
• Alberto Giacometti-Syndikat, Zürich, 1963, Kauf
• Kunsthandel, Galerie Beyeler, Basel, 1963, Kauf
• Sammlung G. David Thompson, Pittsburgh
• Alberto Giacometti