Elegantly combining the complexity and richness of Alberto Giacometti’s sculptural language with the extreme refinement of his work in the decorative arts, this dynamic multi-tiered chandelier is a unique design by the artist, created for a special commission from the renowned British collector and patron of the arts, Peter Watson (1908-1956) in the late 1940s. Having remained in the same private collection for the last half century, the chandelier has only been publicly exhibited once since its creation. 

Following his father’s untimely death, Peter Watson inherited an enormous fortune while still in his early twenties which granted him the financial freedom to embark upon a life dedicated to the arts. Purchasing his first painting at the age of 23 – an intriguing composition by Pavel Tchelitchew – Watson’s passion for the European avant-garde, and particularly Surrealism, flourished through the 1930s, most notably during the time he spent in Paris prior to the outbreak of the Second World War. He rapidly developed a keen eye for quality, and built a vast collection of modern paintings and sculptures, which included multiple works by Pablo Picasso, Paul Klee, Salvador Dalí, Max Ernst, André Masson, Juan Gris, and Giacometti. Forced to return to London during the War, Watson’s attention soon shifted to a new generation of radical British artists working in a diverse array of styles, each pushing the boundaries of tradition in their own away. He began purchasing works by Ben Nicholson, Graham Sutherland, Henry Moore and John Piper, and extended his patronage to several young painters at the very beginning of their careers, including Lucian Freud and John Craxton, providing financial support, advising them on their artistic education, promoting them to his network of influential contacts, and commissioning works directly from them for his collection.

In 1939, Watson co-founded the influential cultural and literary magazine Horizon with Cyril Connolly, providing the core funding for the publication and acting as its unofficial Arts Editor. Horizon was an important showcase for contemporary writers in Britain through the 1940s, publishing short fiction, poetry, essays on literature and art, and book reviews by an impressive range of contributors, from W. H. Auden and George Orwell, to E. M. Forster, Nancy Mitford, and Dylan Thomas. Though initially he had intended to act only as financier for the magazine, Watson became increasingly involved in commissioning articles, scouting for new talent, and using the journal to actively promote the work of leading European artists to a British audience. At the end of the Second World War, Watson was eager to return to Paris, and travelled to the French capital in the summer of 1945. Here, he reconnected with many of the artistic and literary friends he had made before the conflict, including Christian Zervos and Marie-Laure de Noailles, before travelling on to Switzerland. Watson returned to Paris on several more occasions over the ensuing years, and slowly began to purchase artworks from French dealers and artists once again. It was during one such trip to Paris in 1946 or 1947 that Watson most likely visited Giacometti at his studio, and commissioned the artist to design a chandelier for the Horizon offices in London.

For many years, Giacometti had been creating decorative objects alongside his work as a sculptor, referring to his creations as his ‘utilitarian objects.’ His first commission – the redecoration of the office of the banker, Pierre David-Weill in 1929 – was facilitated by a fellow Surrealist, André Masson, and at around the same time, the artist was introduced by Man Ray to the influential interior designer, Jean-Michel Frank. Together, Giacometti and his brother, Diego, who had a few years prior followed the artist to Paris from their native Switzerland, began making a number of decorative objects, often modelled in the white plaster that Frank preferred for his schemes, including lamps, wall sconces, chandeliers, bowls and vases. ‘Everyone who comes here or to the studio swoons over your work,’ Frank wrote to Giacometti in 1934. ‘That’s the only thing they like…’ (quoted in Giacometti, exh. cat., London, 2017, p. 36). Giacometti’s relationship with Frank flourished in the mid-1930s, resulting in a highly productive collaboration that saw his designs acquired by figures as diverse as Nelson Rockefeller in New York, and Elsa Schiaparelli and the Vicomte de Noailles, who counted Watson among his acquaintances, in Paris.  

Having spent the war years in Switzerland, Giacometti returned to France in September 1945. According to legend, the only examples of his wartime creations that he brought back with him were a series of tiny sculptures of the human figure, each one measuring only around two centimetres high and transported inside matchboxes. In just over a week, Giacometti wrote to his mother of the welcoming atmosphere of Paris, despite the widespread shortages: ‘I did not imagine I would be so well received by my friends… Sculpture is going well, I can hold an exhibition whenever I like and I have been invited to lunch tomorrow by a New York dealer, Matisse’s son, who also orders things from me…’ (quoted in C. Grenier, Alberto Giacometti: A Biography, Paris, 2018, p. 165). The months that followed were marked by a great flurry of activity as Giacometti immersed himself once again in new creative projects. Plans for a large retrospective exhibition with Pierre Matisse, meanwhile, encouraged the artist to re-engage with many of his earlier surrealist sculptures, as he selected different pieces to cast in bronze, in preparation for the show. Chandelier for Peter Watson contains traces of the different streams of creative thinking that occupied Giacometti during this productive period, combining an almost minimalist linearity with subtle odes to the natural world, and echoes of the forms which had found expression in his Surrealist sculptures. Indeed, the artist’s discussions with Watson regarding the commission for the Horizon offices, and the collector’s passion for Surrealism, may have played an important role in prompting Giacometti to revisit his earlier sculptures from the pre-war years.

Consisting of a multi-layered armature, with sharply pointed branches radiating out at varying angles from the central spine, Chandelier for Peter Watson combines delicate organic detailing with an almost mechanical geometric character. The tiered elements lend the piece a dynamic, distinctly sculptural quality that goes beyond the purely functional, activating the surrounding space and suggesting the potential for movement. Hanging from the base of the central stem is a spherical ball, punctuated in regular intervals to create a lightweight finial-like element that allows the eye to travel through its form. Adding a further level of complexity to the design by offering a contrasting note to the otherwise linear elements, this ball may be seen to hark back to the artist’s renowned Surrealist sculpture Boule Suspendue of 1931. The idea of suspension would prove essential to Giacometti’s creative vision over the ensuing years, and would find further expression in works such as his iconic Le Nez, the first version of which was created in 1947, around the same time he was working on bringing Chandelier for Peter Watson to realisation. 

As Giacometti explained to Pierre Matisse in 1948, the boundaries between his designs for decorative objects and his sculptures were permeable: ‘I am able to make objects not only because Diego works very well and deals with all aspects of casting… but objects interest me hardly any less than sculpture, and there is a point at which the two touch’ (quoted in exh. cat., op. cit., 2017, p. 36). Considered alongside works such as Le Nez, the chandelier created for the Horizon offices illustrates the important cross-pollination of ideas between the artist’s sculptures and his so-called ‘utilitarian objects’ during these years. A plaster model for the lightweight sphere suspended from the base remained in Giacometti’s studio until his death, when it passed to the artist’s wife Annette, a signal of the personal importance the artist attached to this commission.

James Lord, who had originally been introduced to Giacometti by Watson and would later become the artist’s biographer, recalled in his memoirs the chandelier’s arrival at the Horizon offices in the heart of Bloomsbury: ‘During the two weeks I spent in London, a chandelier created by Alberto Giacometti arrived in the office at Bedford Square. It was an intricate, airy, imposing bronze work. Peter Watson and the sculptor were friends. I felt privileged to have a hand in helping to suspend the splendid fixture from the ceiling while the electrician did his job with the wires’ (A Gift for Admiration – further memoirs, New York, 1998, p. 117). Occupying a central position within the offices, the chandelier was an eye-catching element for all who visited, offering a dramatic addition to the space. The friendship between Giacometti and Watson continued through the following decade, and in 1953 the artist invited Watson to his studio to sit for a portrait, resulting in several sketches and two richly worked paintings of the great British collector, which are now held in the Museum of Modern Art, New York, and in the Kunstmuseum in Basel.

Following the closure of Horizon in 1950, Sonia Orwell was tasked with dismantling the offices in Bedford Square, and the bespoke Giacometti chandelier was removed from the building and placed in storage, along with a number of other important artworks which had been displayed in the publication’s offices. Several of these artworks later passed into the possession of Cyril Connolly, including a cast of Giacometti’s La Place II. The chandelier was rediscovered several years later in a Marylebone antique shop by John Craxton, who recognised the chandelier and its connection to his great benefactor and friend Watson. Craxton purchased it for a few hundred pounds, and the chandelier remained in his personal collection for the rest of his life. For many years it hung in the music room of Craxton’s family home in Hampstead, North London, which played host to recitals by a number of acclaimed musicians and composers through the twentieth century, including Benjamin Britten, Yehudi Menuhin, Pierre Boulez, Vladimir Ashkenazy, Winifred Atwell, Janet Baker, Cleo Laine, Alfred Deller, Dietrich Fischer-Diskau and Peter Pears.