![[Annette], Alberto Giacometti, 1957](https://img.artsmia.org/web_objects_cache/121000/300/50/121357/mia_L37761_800.jpg)
Alberto GiacomettiSwiss, 1901–1966[Annette]
Can I see it?
Not on view at present
Where is “[Annette]” now? Collection: Minneapolis Institute of Art, Minneapolis. Not on view at present. Checked September 29, 2026.
Minneapolis, United States
It belongs to the collection, but is not on display at present.
- Checked
- In this state since
- Source
- The museum
About the work
Alberto Giacometti’s wife and frequent model, Annette, sits alone on a stool in the artist’s studio, gazing straight ahead, devoid of expression. The drawing focuses on Annette—her figure so small within the vast and vaguely drawn interior—especially her face, which Giacometti has reworked with graphite and erasure to draw attention without providing much more visual information. Giacometti intended such portraits not as psychological or sociological studies but as translations of the models’ “otherness, ” suggesting that no amount of understanding or identifying with his subjects could overcome their separateness from him. He meant his portraits to be interpreted solely by the spectator, and like his very slender bronze figure sculptures, the portrait drawings suggest melancholy, alienation, and loneliness.
Minneapolis Institute of Art
Details
- Accession number
- 2016.35.3
In the catalog
Sources
- Minneapolis Institute of Art
- Image: Minneapolis Institute of Art — © Estate of Alberto Giacometti / Licensed by VAGA at Artists Rights Society (ARS), NY
In the life of Alberto Giacometti
The whole lifec. 1957
Painting moves alongside sculpture
Painting makes up only a small part of his oeuvre, but after 1957 his figurative paintings were as present as his sculptures; the almost monochrome canvases of his late work do not refer to any other styles of modernity.
1958
Commission for the Chase Manhattan Bank in New York
In 1958 he was asked to create a monumental sculpture for the Chase Manhattan Bank building then going up. He had long harboured an ambition to make work for a public square, but according to his biographer James Lord he had never set foot in New York or laid eyes on an actual skyscraper.
11 July 1959 – 11 October 1959
Exhibition: Documenta II
