Woman of Venice IX
- Artist: Alberto Giacometti
- Date: 1956
- Medium: Bronze
- Dimensions: object: 1130 x 165 x 346 mm
- Museum: Tate Modern
- Collection record: Tate Modern website
Listen to the free audio guide
About this artwork
This is “Woman of Venice IX” by Alberto Giacometti, a bronze cast from 1956. The piece measures roughly 1.1 m tall, 16 cm deep and 35 cm wide, a strikingly slender figure that Giacometti developed over years of trial and repetition. In the 1940s he started making tall, elongated figures with rough outlines, aiming to capture the human form as seen from a distance. He found that large, bulky versions felt “false”; only when the figure was long and slender did it truly convey his vision of humanity.
This sculpture is the final of a series of ten standing women he produced for the French pavilion at the 1956 Venice Biennale. Each cast came from a plaster model that Giacometti refined repeatedly—building up, stripping down, rebuilding—until he was ready to present it. The bronze bears his signature on the base and a stamp from Paris. Although it was purchased in 1959 from Galerie Maeght, its history is tied to that pivotal Biennale moment. The work’s quiet, elongated presence invites viewers to consider how distance and scale alter our perception of the human form.
See it in person
Woman of Venice IX is in the collection of Tate Modern on Bankside, London — free to enter. Point your phone at any artwork there and audioguide.london plays a free audio guide in six languages — no app download needed.
