Femme de Venise II

Giacometti works on the same figure in clay for several days. He asks his brother Diego to cast this first stage in plaster. He then works the surface further with knives and paint. Only then are the sculptures cast in bronze.

This is the second sculpture in a series of female nudes that we know as ‘Venetian women’. They were given this name because they were on display in the French pavilion at the Venice Biennale in 1956.

The French writer Jean Genet describes Giacometti’s sculptures as “sentinels of death”. The figures are stuck in “absolute immobility”. With this, Giacometti depicts how hard life can sometimes be for us.

Alberto Giacometti is a Swiss sculptor, painter, draftsman and printmaker. From 1922 onwards, he lives and works mainly in Paris. For his long, thin human figures in bronze, he is guided by the impressions he gets of people hurrying in the big city. He is fascinated by people in motion, which he sees as “a succession of moments of stillness”.