Alberto Giacometti, “The Artist’s Mother”, 1950, Oil on Canvas, 89.9 x 61 cm, Museum of Modern Art, New York City 

Born at the city of Borgonovo in October of 1901, Alberto Giacometti was a Swiss draftsman, painter, printmaker and sculptor whose work was particularly influenced by Cubism and Surrealism. Around the age of thirty-five, he left Surrealism to deepen his understanding of figurative compositions. Although known for his figurative sculptures, Giacometti’s figurative paintings were equally as present after 1957. 

Dating from the drawings of his youth, Giacometti used his mother Annetta Giacometti, either alone or with other family members, as a model for his numerous works, both paintings and sculpture. Annetta Giacometti, a formidable presence in Giacometti’s life, returned after the war years to the family home in Stampa, Switzerland. This was the place where Alberto would spend the summers and create most of his mother’s portraits beginning from the end of the 1940s. There are at least five portraits of Annetta Giacometti known to have been painted in 1949.

As attested in his writings, Alberto Giacometti gave the most attention when painting a portrait to the the eyes of the model and the volumes of the nose. His 1950 “The Artist’s Mother”, painted in the family home in Stampa, is composed of layers upon layers of linear brushstrokes. Around the edges, the paint is laid on thinly to create a internal frame, a common element that appears in later works. In the center, the figure is painted more heavily in dark and bright lines that bristle with energy.

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“The object of art is not to reproduce reality, but to create a reality of the same intensity.” -Alberto Giacometti