AUGUSTO GIACOMETTI (Stampa 1877-1947 Zurich) Portrait of Helene Scholz. 1913. Oil on canvas. Signed and dated lower right: AUGUSTO GIACOMETTI 1913. 46 × 46 cm. Certificate: SIK Zurich, 10.9.2024, SIK-ISEA-Inventory number 181119 0016. Provenance: - Private collection of Maria Scholz, Trebovice. - Private collection, Czech Republic. Literature: - Augusto Giacometti: Handwritten catalogue raisonné, 1890, p. 36, as "Portrait of Helene Scholz". - Hans Hartmann: Augusto Giacometti. Pioneer of abstract painting. A life for colour, Chur 1981, p. 218, no. 792, as "Portrait of Helen Scholz". - Andreas Müller-Weiss: The Colour Attack, Zurich 2014, p. 53. - Beat Stutzer: Les cinq Giacometti de Stampa. Giovanni; Augusto; Alberto; Diego; Bruno. Une dynastie artistique, Paris 2017, p. 90. - Marco Giacometti: Augusto Giacometti. In a fiery blaze of colour. The biography, Stampa and Zurich 2022, vol. I, pp. 251 ff. - Michael Egli, Denise Frey and Beat Stutzer: Augusto Giacometti. Catalogue raisonné, ed. Swiss Institute for Art Research, Zurich 2023, vol. I, p. 320, no. 90, as "Portrait of Helene Scholz". * The full tax is charged on this item marked * in the auction catalogue, i.e. VAT is charged on the sum of the bid price plus the surcharge for those items. The VAT will be refunded to Purchasers providing a validly stamped export declaration. ------------------------------------------------- AUGUSTO GIACOMETTI (Stampa 1877-1947 Zurich) Portrait of Helene Scholz. 1913. Oil on canvas. Signed and dated lower right: AUGUSTO GIACOMETTI 1913. 46 × 46 cm. Expertise: Swiss Institute for Art Research, Zurich, 10.9.2024, SIK-ISEA inventory number 181119 0016. Provenance: - Private property Maria Scholz, Trebovice. - Czech private collection. Literature: - Augusto Giacometti: Handwritten catalogue raisonné, 1890, p. 36, as "Portrait of Helene Scholz". - Hans Hartmann: Augusto Giacometti. Pioneer of abstract painting. A life for colour, Chur 1981, p. 218, no. 792, as "Portrait of Helen Scholz". - Andreas Müller-Weiss: The Colour Attack, Zurich 2014, p. 53. - Beat Stutzer: Les cinq Giacometti de Stampa. Giovanni; Augusto; Alberto; Diego; Bruno. Une dynastie artistique, Paris 2017, p. 90. - Marco Giacometti: Augusto Giacometti. In a fiery blaze of colour. The biography, Stampa and Zurich 2022, vol. I, p. 251 ff. - Michael Egli, Denise Frey and Beat Stutzer: Augusto Giacometti. Catalogue raisonné, ed. Swiss Institute for Art Research, Zurich 2023, vol. I, p. 320, no. 90, as "Portrait of Helene Scholz". Helene Scholz, who was born in 1882 and whom Augusto portrayed in this painting, was a sculptor and medallist from Silesia. After studying architecture and sculpture in Vienna, Dresden and Brussels, she went to Italy and was taught by Augusto Giacometti in Florence between 1909 and 1913. The relationship between the two was close during these years. They travelled to Switzerland together several times. Augusto was to remember this encounter in his diaries years later, just as the younger sculptor looked back on their time together in the 1970s. Scholz travelled to Tunis in 1913 and returned to Vienna at the outbreak of the First World War. She married Jan Zelezny in 1917. After the war, she returned to Italy, where she spent a large part of her life. During her lifetime, she created around 400 sculptures, including many portrait busts. As can be seen from a letter from Augusto to his father dated 3 January 1913, Giacometti created two portraits of Helene Scholz. According to Augusto, one of the two was a commission. He later commented on the two works to a friend. He described one work as "almost just a fantasy about this subject" while the second was "more of a reality". The painting offered here ended up with the mother of Helene Zeleny-Scholz, a writer working in Silesia, who had probably commissioned the portrait. The years between 1912 and 1915 marked the first major high point in Augusto Giacometti's oeuvre. During this period, he created such important works as "An Ascent of Piz Duan" (1912; today Kunsthaus Zürich) and "May Morning" (1912; today Kunstmuseum Basel). These are compositions that are only vaguely reminiscent of the natural model and which achieve a high degree of abstraction in this early period. In short brushstrokes, Augusto applies unmixed colours to the interspersed canvas like a mosaic, thus further developing pointillism. He also used this technique in a number of portraits and figure paintings during this period. This work, which was thought to be lost until today, is an important rediscovery of what was probably the most important artistic phase in Augusto's oeuvre. These objects marked with * (asterisk) are fully subject to VAT, i.e. VAT will be charged on the hammer price plus buyer's premium. Buyers who present a legally stamped export declaration will be reimbursed the VAT.