Portrait of Isaku Yanaihara

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Portrait of Isaku Yanaihara

Switzerland, 1956
Paintings
Oil on canvas
32 × 25 1/2 in. (81.28 × 64.77 cm)
Partial, fractional and promised gift of Janice and Henri Lazarof (M.2005.70.30)
Currently on public view:
Broad Contemporary Art Museum, floor 3

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Label

Between 1956 and 1961, Giacometti made over a dozen oil portraits and one sculpture of Japanese philosopher Isaku Yanaihara....
Between 1956 and 1961, Giacometti made over a dozen oil portraits and one sculpture of Japanese philosopher Isaku Yanaihara. Yanaihara interviewed Giacometti for a Japanese magazine in 1955, instigating a long friendship based on their shared interest in existentialist philosophy. The second in the group, this painting features the seated figure suffused in glowing electric light. It is less a physical portrait and more an apparition; as Giacometti said, “I am not attempting likeness, but resemblance.”

Wall label, 2021.
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Bibliography

  • Barron, Stephanie. Envisioning Modernism: The Janice and Henri Lazarof Collection. Los Angeles: Los Angeles County Museum of Art; Munich; New York: DelMonico Books-Prestel, 2012.