Giacometti's lamp offered to Gruber

from the old Francis Gruber collection

Alberto GIACOMETTI (Borgonovo, 1901 - Coire, 1966)

"torch" model lamp, small model, c. 1934.

Bronze.

Height 44.5 cm (electrified).

Provenance:
- collection Francis Gruber (1912-1948) ;
- offered by George Bernstein (1916-2005), widow of Francis Gruber as a wedding gift to Marcel Degliame (1912-1989), known as Fouché, and his wife Jeannine Manuel, 1972.

The Giacometti Committee has confirmed the authenticity of this work which bears the number AGD 4151.

Bibliography:
- Christian Boutonnet and Rafael Ortiz, "Diego Giacometti", Les Editions de l'Amateur, Galerie l'Arc en Seine, 2003, another bronze print reproduced p. 43.
- Pierre-Emmanuel Martin-Vivier "Jean Michel Frank, l'étrange luxe du rien", Norma Editions, Paris, 2006, other illustrated versions pp. 28, 29, 68 and 152.
- A. Chanaux and L. Diego Sanchez, "Jean-Michel Frank", Paris, 1997, a proof titled "Lampe à piètement géométrique" reproduced p. 239.

LOT REVENDU sur FOLLE ENCHÈRE by Mr. Cristobal del Castillo de Mora y Aragon, rue de Montpensier in Paris, honorary member of the Jean-Michel Frank committee and partner of HL Castillo, rue de Montpensier in Paris, whose president is Mr. Jean-Paul Hureau, also Deputy Managing Director of Oudart Patrimoine.

Our lamp comes from the collection of the expressionist painter Francis Gruber, a close friend of Alberto Giacometti, who made his tombstone in 1948. His widow George, daughter of the playwright Henri Bernstein, gave it as a wedding present to her friends Degliame in 1972. Janine accompanied him to launch the Kitchen Bazaar store in Paris in the 1960s, then in Tours. A trade unionist and great resistance fighter under the name Fouché, Marcel Degliame was also a man of theater and television, directing the theater of Babylon. The lamp adorned his desk until his death.

The Tériade lamp
The Giacometti Foundation keeps several plaster and bronze copies of this model in its collections. One of them, in white plaster (AGD 511) comes from the former collection of the publisher Tériade. The catalog of the sale of the estate of Alice Tériade (Artcurial, Paris, 20 October 2007, n°a49) states: "This model was also called by Annette Giacometti "Tériade lamp". Tériade had owned this lamp for many years and had put it on her desk in rue Férou. Some drawings by Alberto Giacometti illustrate it".

" Giacometti Gruber un regard partagé ",
"Alberto Giacometti and Francis Gruber have known each other since the early thirties. Their studios are next door in rue Hippolyte-Maindron, not far from the villa d'Alesia, in a mythical Montparnasse where artists renew aesthetic codes. The assiduous practice of drawing tightens their friendly bonds, which will not slacken. Giacometti regularly visited Gruber's studio, where he drew "Nude in the studio" in relation to the tall figures who, as early as 1946, reappeared in Giacometti's studio, and in particular with Annette ".
Galerie de la Présidence, 2017.


Giacometti and the decorative arts
Giacometti's real involvement in the world of decorative arts really developed from his meeting with the decorator Jean-Michel Frank, with whom he collaborated regularly throughout the 1930s. More than just a working relationship, it is a true friendship that will develop between the two men and will only end with the tragic death of Jean-Michel Frank in March 1941. In each of these projects, the decorator used many decorative elements already designed by Giacometti, (table lamps, floor lamps, wall lights, vases), but also commissioned new pieces. Among Frank's collaborators, Alberto Giacometti occupies a privileged place. No design will be complete without including at least one of his creations. In all, the sculptor invented nearly a hundred models for the famous decorator."
in Thierry Pautot, Giacometti Foundation