The Chariot

1950

Alberto Giacometti

Sculptor, Swiss, 1901 - 1966

An abstracted, nude person stands on a platform perched on two wheels, all cast in bronze, which balances on wooden blocks in this freestanding sculpture. The elongated, unnaturally thin woman stands with her arms slightly bent and held out to her sides. She has low-set breasts, and her blocky, oversized feet stand on a metal platform supported on two vertical strips of bronze that perch on the axle. The wheels are oversized with four spokes each arranged to look like Xs. The surface of the woman and wheels are rough and knubby, and all of the metal is colored gold. The wood blocks stand upright with channels cut into their upper surfaces to hold the wheels. The sculpture is angled to our left in this photograph, and it is shown against a pale gray background.
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On View

NGA, East Building, EU-407-A, CENTER

Artwork overview

  • Medium

    bronze

  • Credit Line

    Gift of Enid A. Haupt

  • Dimensions

    overall: 164.1 x 68.6 x 67 cm (64 5/8 x 27 x 26 3/8 in.)

  • Accession

    1977.47.2

  • Copyright

    © 2013 Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York / ADAGP, Paris

Artwork history & notes

Provenance

(Pierre Matisse Gallery, New York);[1] Mrs. Enid Annenberg Haupt, New York, by 1973;[2] gift 1977 to NGA.
[1] Memorandum of telephone call between J. Carter Brown and Mrs. Enid A. Haupt, 26 September 1977, in NGA curatorial files. [2] See memo concerning the Haupt collection dated 14 May 1973, in NGA curatorial files.

Associated Names

Exhibition History

1978

  • Aspects of Twentieth-Century Art, National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., 1978-1979, no. 67, repro.

1987

  • The Giacometti Family, Centro Cultural Arte Contemporaneo, Polanco, Mexico, 1987.

1988

  • Alberto Giacometti 1906-1966, Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C.; San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, 1988-1989, no. 48.

Bibliography

1991

  • Kopper, Philip. America's National Gallery of Art: A Gift to the Nation. New York, 1991: 314, color repro.

1992

  • National Gallery of Art, Washington. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1992: 265, repro.

1994

  • Sculpture: An Illustrated Catalogue. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1994: 99, repro.

Inscriptions

inscribed on plate, left edge, right corner: A. Giacometti; back of plate, left: 6/6; back of plate, right: Alexis Rudier / Fondeur Paris

Markings

FM: Alexis Rudier

Wikidata ID

Q63854299

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