Leading museum collection
The purpose of the Foundation is to create and maintain an ALBERTO GIACOMETTI CENTRE in Zurich, by means of a museum and representative collection of Alberto Giacometti's works, in order to make the artist's oeuvre in its development and in all its forms of expression (sculpture, painting, drawings and graphics) permanently accessible to the public and to the study of art scholars and art lovers.
The Foundation's holdings are largely kept in the Kunsthaus Zürich and presented in the permanent exhibition collection. The administration and documentation are also domiciled here. A quarter of the original holdings are on display at the Kunstmuseum Basel and ten percent at the Kunstmuseum Winterthur.
The Foundation was established in 1965 in Zurich by a group of art-lovers including Hans C. Bechtler who had acquired the Giacomettis owned by Pittsburgh industrialist G. David Thompson via the Basel-based gallery owner Ernst Beyeler. Thompson had collected numerous key sculptures from the artist’s avant-garde period (1925 to 1934) along with examples of most of his major works from 1947 to 1950, the greatest flowering of his creativity. Giacometti himself contributed some later works of his own, consisting of a group of drawings and several paintings, and in 2006 Bruno and Odette Giacometti presented the Foundation with 75 plasters and several bronzes from the artist’s estate.
The collection has now grown to around 800 objects. It encompasses Alberto Giacometti's life's work from his earliest to his last works in all its essential aspects and numerous, surprising facets. A quarter of the original collection is on display at the Kunstmuseum Basel and ten percent at the Kunstmuseum Winterthur.