Lot n° 104
Estimation :
10000 - 15000
EUR
Result with fees
Result
: 33 800EUR
GIACOMETTI Alberto (1901-1966).PONGE Francis (1899-1988). - Lot 104
GIACOMETTI Alberto (1901-1966).PONGE Francis (1899-1988).
2 L.A.S. from Alberto GIACOMETTI to F. Ponge, 2 L.A.S. from Francis PONGE to Giacometti, and 8 autograph MANUSCRITS from Francis PONGE. 10 000/15 000
Precious exchange between the sculptor and the poet, and a set of manuscripts tracing the genesis and elaboration of Francis Ponge's texts on Giacometti.
Francis Ponge, who wrote several texts on artists such as Braque, Fautrier or Fenosa, devoted a lot of time to studying Giacometti's work. He published the results of his meditations in 1951, in the Cahiers d'art directed by Christian Zervos, under the title Réflexions sur les statuettes, figures et peintures d'Alberto Giacometti, which were later collected in Lyres, the first volume of the Grand Recueil (Gallimard, 1961), and in L'Atelier contemporain (Gallimard, 1977). In the spring of 1964, Ponge also published a selection of preparatory notes for these "Réflexions" under the title Joca seria (Notes on the sculptures of Alberto Giacometti) in the journal Méditations, which were collected in 1967 in the Nouveau Recueil (Gallimard, 1967), then in L'Atelier contemporain (Gallimard, 1977).
In his art criticism, or rather his poems on art, Ponge "does not in any way seek [...] to place the work before the eyes with words, to awaken a visual representation. Rather, he proposes a reading of the artist's intentions and of the law of constitution of his work, that is to say, of the implicit poetics" (Bernard Beugnot, Poétique de Francis Ponge. Le palais diaphane, 1990).
GIACOMETTI Alberto. L.A.S. "Alberto", Paris 17 September 1951 (4 p. in-8). Zervos gave him a copy of the article "which I read with great pleasure and interest [...] I like very much the development of the article, this thread that one follows from beginning to end"... But a passage bothers him, which he quotes: ""G. was born in 1901 in S[tampa] (S[uisse]) in a mountain village, that is to say in the rough heart of Europe, but rather turned towards Italy. His mother, a rock (he looks like one), had married a field of flowers [...] She had three sons, like Switzerland itself: a rock and two pines". There is something in the end of this passage that offends me, that I feel does not correspond to reality and that it would be unpleasant, even intolerable to see printed. Not in the first part although the village is not rather but quite turned towards Italy and therefore not very rough! But my mother not rock at all, this word does not define her in any way, and very pretty, it distorts her (true enough and very pretty the definition of my father) she had 3 sons and a daughter, I do not understand the parallel with Switzerland which has nothing to do with it in any way [...] and the "a rock and two pines" is very unpleasant to me! (You don't know how little rock I am and feel!) [...] Can't you modify this passage which is in fact separate from the article [...] I tell you in passing that my valley is Swiss only politically and nothing more, my family like me as little shepherd as possible since always"... He notes another detail concerning the Grande Chaumière, and hopes that Ponge will forgive him this letter...
PONGE Francis. 2 L.A.S. "F.P.", Les Fleurys 19 and 20 September 1951 (3 and 2 p. in-4). "Devil! Dear Giacometti!... Indeed, what to do? You can be sure that with my "article" as it is (very well thought out, I assure you), until further notice I am holding on a little... Imagine that you have made a portrait of someone... It is first of all a work of you, it seems to me... If you were asked to change it, what would your reaction be? Of course, neither you nor your mother (nor your brothers, etc.) - whom I respect infinitely - are rocks, nor shepherds, nor pine trees (nor, for that matter, fields of flowers, Jupiter or Polyphemus). Do I have to explain to you that a rock that marries a field of flowers is not a rock? And Ponge quotes Antoine Godeau's text on Malherbe and poetry, which "hides under the bark of the fable what the other sciences offer in the open, to make the truths it publishes more venerable by the veil that covers them"... He has been working for more than two months on Giacometti: "I have enough material to write a whole book on your work. I'll show you the hundred or so handwritten pages from which the incriminating poem came. Perhaps you will find in these pages some notations to please you... but not the unity and the life in relation to the text that I have shown. I would need another month or two to try to put something else together. He proposed publishing the article as it stood, followed by Giacometti's letter, or withdrawing it and 'doing it again some day, after other conversations with you (let's say other posing sessions), and other meditations'... - The next day, Ponge proposes a new version of the incriminated passage.
GIACOMETTI Alberto. L.A.S. "Alberto Giacometti", Paris 23 September 1951 (3 p. in-8). "I thank you for
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