Alberto Giacometti

Standing Woman

c.1958–9, cast released by the artist 1964

© The Estate of Alberto Giacometti (Fondation Giacometti, Paris and ADAGP, Paris), licensed in the UK by ACS and DACS, London 2022

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Not on display

Artist: Alberto Giacometti 1901–1966
Original title: Femme debout
Medium: Bronze
Dimensions: Object: 686 × 140 × 270 mm
Collection: Tate
Acquisition: Purchased with assistance from the Friends of the Tate Gallery 1965
Reference: T00775

Display caption

During the late 1950s Giacometti made a number of fragmentary figures, their arms partly or entirely missing. Their slender, emaciated forms convey a vivid but fragile human presence. The writer Jean Genet commented: 'The resemblance of his figures to each other seems to me to represent that precious point at which human beings are confronted with the most irreducible fact: the loneliness of being exactly equivalent to all others.'

Gallery label, October 2000

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Catalogue entry

Alberto Giacometti 1901-1966

T00775 Femme debout (Standing Woman) c.1958-9

Inscribed 'Alberto Giacometti | 6/6' on top of base, l. and '6/6 | Susse Fondeur Paris' on l. side of base
Bronze, 27 x 54 x 104 (68.5 x 14 x 27)
Purchased from the artist (Grant-in-Aid) with the aid of the Friends of the Tate Gallery 1965
Exh: Alberto Giacometti: Sculpture Paintings Drawings 1913-65, Tate Gallery, July-August 1965 (77) as 'Standing Woman' c.1958-9; Giacometti-Udstillingen, Louisiana Museum, Humlebaek, September-October 1965 (72)

The plasters of this figure and T00777 were first exhibited at the Venice Biennale in 1962 (Giacometti 70 and 71) with the date 1958-60, but the bronzes were not released by the artist until 1964. This figure with its unusually flattened surfaces and narrow hips is related to the smaller 'Figurine' of 1957 reproduced by J. Dupin, Alberto Giacometti (Paris 1962), p.281 and has been known for identification as 'Figure XIII'. (Information from Pierre Matisse, August 1966).