Sketchbook (oeuvre catalogue) , c. 1958
Skizzenbuch (Werkkatalog)

Only one sketchbook from the post-war period is preserved; in it, in 1958, Giacometti compiles a kind of catalogue raisonné of his works. He starts by cursorily sketching the sculptures in chronological order in pencil, from ‘Tête qui regarde’ through to the ‘Chariot’, one on each page.

He then continues in increasingly summary fashion in ballpoint pen, proceeding to a list of paintings and then a summation of his production. In particular, however, he now begins to overdraw the Surrealist sculptures in pen with figures and schematic landscapes; a mountainside with a tiny figure, for example, is superimposed over the ‘Cube’. A notable surprise awaits on the last pages used: a three-cornered and a four-cornered head, each with variants, in the manner of the sculptures that Picasso produced from 1954 onwards.

Material
Pencil till fol. 20, partly overdrawn with ballpoint pen: 2r, 3r, 4r, 5r, 8r, 9r, 10r; blue ballpoint from 21 onwards, further: 7r; in black from page 36.
Dimensions
23.0 x 20.0 cm
Creditline
Kunsthaus Zürich, Alberto Giacometti-Stiftung, Donated by Bruno and Odette Giacometti, 2000
Object number
GS 237
Signature
not inscribed
Further information
100 sheets, blank from fol. 41
Provenance