Galerie Beyeler, Basel
Herbert Lust, New York
Milton D. Ratner Family Collection, Chicago (and sold: Sotheby's, New York, May 16, 1984, lot 316)
Acquired at the above sale

Chicago, Art Institute of Chicago; River Forest, Illinois, Rosary College; Omaha, Joslyn Art Museum; Indianapolis, Indianapolis Museum of Art; Madison, University of Wisconsin, Elvehjem Art Center; Jerusalem, Israel Museum, Alberto Giacometti: the Milton D. Ratner Family Collection, 1974-75, no. 31, illustrated in the catalogue
Purchase, State University of New York, Neuberger Museum; Wichita, Wichita State University, Edwin A. Ulrich Museum of Art; Sarasota, John and Mabel Ringling Museum of Art; Austin, University of Texas; Denver, Denver Art Museum; Seattle, Seattle Art Museum; Columbus, Columbus Gallery of Fine Arts; Oklahoma City, Oklahoma Art Center; Jacksonville, Jacksonville Art Museum & Newark, Newark Museum [an exhibition organized by the American Federation of Arts], Alberto Giacometti: Sculptor and Draftsman, 1977-79, no. 2, illustrated in the catalogue
Mexico, Centro Culturale Arte Contemporaneo, Giacometti Familia, Giovanni, Augusto, Alberto, Diego, 1987, no. 16, illustrated in the catalogue p. 67
Barcelona, Fundació Joan Miró, Giacometti, 1987, no. 16

Alberto Giacometti, A Retrospective Exhibition (exhibition catalogue), Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York, 1974, no. 8, illustration of another cast p. 52
Alberto Giacometti (exhibition catalogue), Fondation Pierre Gianadda, Martigny, 1986, no. 46, illustration of another cast p. 264
Alberto Giacometti: Skulpturen, Gemäalde, Zeichnungen, Graphik (exhibition catalogue), Peter Beye & Dieter Honisch, Munich, 1987, no. 20, illustration of another cast p. 159
Alberto Giacometti (exhibition catalogue), Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofia, Madrid, 1990, no. 145, color  illustration of another cast p. 359
Yves Bonnefoy, ed., Alberto Giacometti, A Biography of His Work, Paris, 1991, no. 151, color illustration of another cast p. 159
Alberto Giacometti (exhibition catalogue), Museum of Modern Art, New York & Kunsthaus, Zurich, 2001, p. 70, illustration of another cast pl. 25

This work is in very good original condition. The bronze is sound with an attractive black patina. There is a light build-up of dust in the crevices and some very minor wear to te most protruding areas, along the underside of the base and the outside of the right ear. A close inspection reveals a speck of pigment on the crown of the hair and a superficial hairline scratch to the lobe of the right ear.
In response to your inquiry, we are pleased to provide you with a general report of the condition of the property described above. Since we are not professional conservators or restorers, we urge you to consult with a restorer or conservator of your choice who will be better able to provide a detailed, professional report. Prospective buyers should inspect each lot to satisfy themselves as to condition and must understand that any statement made by Sotheby's is merely a subjective qualified opinion.
NOTWITHSTANDING THIS REPORT OR ANY DISCUSSIONS CONCERNING CONDITION OF A LOT, ALL LOTS ARE OFFERED AND SOLD "AS IS" IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE CONDITIONS OF SALE PRINTED IN THE CATALOGUE.

One of the first portraits Giacometti ever executed of his father, the painter Giovanni Giacometti, Tête du père, ronde II forms part of a series of portraits that the artist sculpted of his family between 1926 and 1930. This series of portraits provides a captivating record of Giacometti's first radical evolution away from the traditional means of representing a human head.

As a boy, inspired by reproductions of Rodin’s sculpture, Giacometti had discovered a natural talent for making busts of his brothers Bruno and Diego, succeeding in describing their appearance in the classical manner. By the time he came to execute the important series of portraits of his father circa 1927-30 which includes the present work, Giacometဣti had begun to feel that only absolute fidelity to the psychic and visual experience of being in front of his sitter—to model a head as he actually perceived it no matter how surprising or unpredictable the sculptural results—could mark an artistic work with integrity.

The first portrait of this series dates from 1927 and is a highly skilled academic likeness. This was followed by at least three others of roughly the same dimensions which grew gradually more distorted and abstract, becoming flatter and flatter, until Giovanni’s recognizable traits had all but vanished. The present work, Tête du père, ronde II, is the second of this series and it marks the transition from the rounded, naturalistic first portrait, with its conventional contours, to the third motif with its extreme degree of simplification, in which Giovanni’s features are simply incised on the flat plane of his face.

Cast but never publically exhibited during the artist’s lifetime, the present work has a uniquely distinguished provenance. Initially acquired from the artist by the legendary Swiss dealer Ernst Beyeler, Tête du père, ronde II, passe𝕴d through two of the greatest private collections of Giacometti’s work ever amassed—firstly that of the artist’s friend and contemporary Herbert Lust, and subsequently that of Milton D. Ratner—be🌃fore being purchased in 1984 by Thomas M. Messer, preeminent director of the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum from 1961 to 1988.