"Rue d' Aleisa"

(1954)

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"Rue d' Aleisa", 1954, color lithograph, 651x540mm; 25 5/8" x 21 1/4", full margins.  Signed and numbered in pencil, lower margin.  Published by Maeght, Paris. A fine impression [Lust 201].

Alberto Giacometti (1901-1966) was born at Stampa, Switzerland in the Bregaglia valley, son of the Swiss Impressionist painter, Giovannia Giacometti.  He attended the Ecole des Arts et Metiers, Geneva, and worked under Bourdelle from 1922 to 1925.  He attached himself to the Surrealist movement during the 1930s, producing the unique attenuated subjects that were to be his life-long signature in sculpture, oil painting, and graphics.

In 1935, he abandoned Surrealism, destroying many of his works. He then turned his vision towards the reduction of volume, density and scale so that his subjects became thin, attenuated and increasingly figurative, conveying his conviction that humanism was evolving into greater and greater isolation. There is an underlying element of tragic humanism and the vacuousness of modern 20th century man in Giacometti's eviscerated images. He strips away all but the essential form in his depictions.

Most of Giacometti's lithographs are close to his paintings and drawings in theme and conception.  In his "Rue d' Aleisa", however, he created a lithographic masterpiece in his painterly heavy brush manner, utilizing his typically palette of warm grays, blacks, browns and creamy whites. 

This Giacometti color lithograph is in a 41 1/4" x 32 7/8" sloping contemporary frame with a raised lip. The variegated frame is brushed and washed over a gold underlay with warm browns and blacks. The outer taupe suede, middle rusty brown and inner 8-ply black shadow rag mats are acid and lignin free and are protected with Acrylite-AR OP3 (UV) by CYRO ....... SOLD