"L’intensité d’une aventure" [The intensity of an adventure]
The friendship between Alberto Giacometti, Isabel Rawsthorne, and Francis Bacon : a lecture by Hugo Daniel, Head of Research Programmes at the École des Modernités and curator of exhibitions at the Giacometti Foundation, as part of the "Giacometti's Time" series.
Auditorium
free entrance
The exhibition "Le temps de Giacometti (1946-1966)" at Les Abattoirs, Musée - Frac Occitanie Toulouse, co-organised with the Fondation Giacometti, explores in a new way the art and life of the artist Alberto Giacometti in the context of the post-war years up to his death in 1966.
In 1936, after leaving Surrealism, Alberto Giacometti met the artist Isabel Delmer (née Nicholas, later Lambert and Rawsthorne) in Paris, a student of Epstein's who had come to study in Paris, and she quickly became his friend. After the war, Isabel, who met Francis Bacon in Paris in 1946, became his friend and introduced him to Giacometti. This intense friendship between the three of them defined a solitary path which, in a post-war period dominated on both sides of the Atlantic by abstraction, instead defined a community of thought around an attachment to the figure and to the human condition, however tortured and violent the experience. Rarely commented on, this friendship stands out for its intensity.
Hugo Daniel
Hugo Daniel is an art historian, head of research programmes at the École des Modernités and curator of exhibitions at the Giacometti Foundation. He holds a doctorate from the University of Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne, where he also taught, and is the author of a thesis on the status and redefinition of drawing in the Western avant-gardes of the 1950s and 1960s. In addition to the work of Giacometti, his research focuses on the history of drawing in the 20th century, creative processes and the relationship between art and psychiatry. He contributed to the curating of the "Bacon-Giacometti" exhibition (Fondation Beyeler, 2018) and has curated several exhibitions, including: "Rodin-Giacometti" (co-curated with Catherine Chevillot and Catherine Grenier, Fondation Gianadda, Martigny, 2019-Fondation Mapfre, Madrid, 2020), "Giacometti-Beckett" (Institut Giacometti, 2020-21), "Legacy. Giacometti-Ristelhueber" (Institut Giacometti, 2022), "Alberto Giacometti, Beginning, again" (Tel Aviv Museum of Art, 2023), and "Alberto Giacometti - The Nose" (Institut Giacometti, 2023).
About the Giacometti Foundation
The Giacometti Foundation is a private foundation of public utility created in 2003. It is the universal legatee of Annette Giacometti, the artist's widow, and owns the world's largest collection of works by Alberto Giacometti, with nearly 10,000 works and objects. Based in Paris, it is directed by Catherine Grenier, general curator of heritage and art historian.
The Giacometti Foundation aims to protect, disseminate and promote Giacometti's work. It organises exhibitions, arranges loans in France and abroad, and organises the authentication committee for the artist's works.
The Institut Giacometti is the Giacometti Foundation's current exhibition space, which is also dedicated to art history research and teaching.
Alberto Giacometti, "Caroline in Tears", 1962, Oil on canvas, 100 x 73 cm, Fondation Giacometti © Succession Alberto Giacometti /Adagp, Paris 2023