Herbert Lust characterizes Paris San Fin, an artist's book containing 150 unsigned original lithographs composed between 1957 and 1962 as a "magical work" that is "in many respects the most beautiful book of this century" and characterizes it as "the artist's last testament to his own life and to modern art." In his text, Giacometti said:

Paris now reduced for me to an attempt at slightly understanding the root of a nose in sculpture. I feel all of her space outside around me, her streets, her sky, I see myself strolling her neighborhoods, a little everywhere, my portfolio under my arm, stoping, drawing. . . .

Oh! the desire to do pictures of Paris, a little everywhere, there where life has led me, or would leave me, the only way for all this my lithograph crayon, not painting or drawing, just this crayon for capturing on the spot, with no chance of ever erasing or revising, my first impressions. (Lust 87-88)

These lithographs, based upon that first fleeting moment in which we stumble upon a well-known scene and suddenly see it as if for the first time, that epiphany of something more lasting than a moment's glance normally yields, when we suddenly see a truth we want to preserve and re-present to others as we saw it in that excited moment of discovery and invention, is what gives these lithographs much of their power. Lust sees Paris Sans Fin as "an impulsive quest for a primordial truth, but it might better be seen as an attempt to "see better" the truths around us that we lose because we have come to take the things that might make us see and understand for granted and hence as things that require no thought and no response (as the proverb goes, "familiarity breeds contempt," and as we know, contempt leads to blindness).

Paris Sans Fin was published posthumously by Teriade in 1969 in an edition of 250 copies on Velin d'Arches paper (plus 20 HC sets). It was included in From Manet to Hockney: Modern Artists' Illustrated Books, a show cataloguing the Victoria and Alberts Museum's 1985 survey of the greatest artist books of the previous 100 years and the resulting catalogue for the show. They illustrate the work with three lithographs, one of which, plate 138, we offer below. Our impressions come from a set of unbound proofs and are printed on both sides. Paper size: 410x322mm.

In the bistro (Paris Sans Fin plate 88, Lust 292). Original lithograph, 1957-1962. Proof before publication in Paris Sans Fin. Edition: 250 impressions on Arches plus 20 HC; ours is a proof before publication. Lust 293 is on the reverse. Image size: 410x322mm. Price: Please call or email for current pricing information.

In the bistro (Paris Sans Fin plate 89, Lust 293). Original lithograph, 1957-1962. Proof before publication in Paris Sans Fin. Edition: 250 impressions on Arches plus 20 HC; ours is a proof before publication. Lust 292 is on the reverse. Image size: 410x322mm. Price: free with plate 88, Lust 292 above).

Man dining (Paris Sans Fin plate 90, Lust 294). Original lithograph, 1957-1962. Proof before publication in Paris Sans Fin. Edition: 250 impressions on Arches plus 20 HC; ours is a proof before publication. Lust 295 is on the reverse. The man resembles the philosopher and playwright Jean-Paul Sartre, a friend of Giacometti who wrote an essay about his work published in Derriere le Miroir. Image size: 410x322mm. Price: Please call or email for current pricing information.

Street café (Paris Sans Fin plate 91, Lust 295). Original lithograph, 1957-1962. Proof before publication in Paris Sans Fin. Edition: 250 impressions on Arches plus 20 HC; ours is a proof before publication. Lust 294 is on the reverse. The man resembles the philosopher and playwright Jean-Paul Sartre, a friend of Giacometti who wrote an essay about his work published in Derriere le Miroir. Image size: 410x322mm. Price: Price: free with plate 90, Lust 294 above).

Woman (Paris Sans Fin plate 136, Lust 340). Original lithograph, 1957-1962. Proof before publication in Paris Sans Fin. Edition: 250 impressions on Arches plus 20 HC; ours is a proof before publication. Lust 341 is on the reverse. Image size: 410x322mm. Price: Please call or email for current pricing information.

Head of a Man (Paris Sans Fin plate 137, Lust 341). Original lithograph, 1957-1962. Proof before publication in Paris Sans Fin. Edition: 250 impressions on Arches plus 20 HC; ours is a proof before publication. Lust 340 is on the reverse. Image size: 410x322mm. Price: Price: free with plate 136, Lust 340 above).

Head of a Man (Paris Sans Fin plate 138, Lust 342). Original lithograph, 1957-1962. Proof before publication in Paris Sans Fin. Edition: 250 impressions on Arches plus 20 HC; ours is a proof before publication. Illustrated in From Manet to Hockney: Modern Artists' Illustrated Books (London: Victoria and Alberts Museum, 1985). Lust 343 is on the reverse. Image size: 410x322mm. Price: Please call or email for current pricing information.

At the table (Paris Sans Fin plate 139, Lust 343). Original lithograph, 1957-1962. Proof before publication in Paris Sans Fin. Edition: 250 impressions on Arches plus 20 HC; ours is a proof before publication. Illustrated in From Manet to Hockney: Modern Artists' Illustrated Books (London: Victoria and Alberts Museum, 1985). Lust 342 is on the reverse. Image size: 410x322mm. Price: free with plate 138, Lust 342 above).

Spaightwood Galleries, Inc.

To purchase, call us at 1-800-809-3343 (1-508-529-2511 in Upton MA & vicinity) or send an email to spaightwood@gmail.com
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For directions and visiting information, please call. We are, of course, always available over the web and by telephone (see above for contact information). Click the following for links to past shows and artists. For a visual tour of the gallery, please click here. For information about Andy Weiner and Sonja Hansard-Weiner, please click here. For a list of special offers currently available, see Specials.

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Visiting hours: Saturday 10:00 am to 5:00 pm and Sunday noon to 6:00 pm and other times by arrangement.
Please call to confirm your visit. Browsers and guests are welcome.

Impressionist and Post-Impressionist Prints and Drawings: Prints by Pierre Bonnard, Georges Braque,
Charles Camoin, Mary Cassatt, Paul Cezanne, Henri Edmond Cross, Edgar Degas, Sonia Delaunay,
Maurice Denis, André Derain, Susanne Duchamp, Raoul Dufy, Jean-Louis Forain, Paul Gauguin,
Marie Laurencin, Edouard Manet, Henri Matisse, Berthé Morisot, Pablo Picasso, Pierre Auguste Renoir,
Georges Rouault, Ker Xavier Roussel, Paul Signac, Henri Toulouse-Lautrec, Suzanne Valadon,
Maurice de Vlaminck, James A. McNeill Whistler, and others.

Drawings by Albert Besnard, Andre Barbier, Henri Edmond Cross, Jean-Louis Forain, Eva Gonzales,
Marie Laurencin, Maximilien Luce, and Georges Rouault.

Hand-colored prints by Mary Cassatt, Marc Chagall, Sonja Delaunay, Fernand Léger, Joan Miró,
Henri Matisse, and Pablo Picasso.

For a review of the show that concludes, "Art exhibits in Madison rarely get this good," click review.