Giacometti, Alberto (1901–1966). Swiss sculptor, painter, and draughtsman, active mainly in Paris. He was born in the village of Borgonovo, near the Italian border, the son of the painter Giovanni Giacometti (1868–1933), whose work was influenced by Impressionism and Post-Impressionism. Although he was to spend almost all his career in France, he retained great affection for Switzerland and returned regularly to visit his family. After short periods at the École des Arts et Métiers, Geneva (1919–20), and in Italy (1920–1), he moved to Paris, where he studied under Bourdelle at the Académie de la Grande Chaumière from 1922 to 1925. At this time he tried to get ‘as close as I could to my vision of reality', but in 1925 he abandoned naturalism and began a period of restless experimentation. From 1930 to 1935 he took part in the Surrealist movement, developing a highly individual attenuated manner, exemplified in the open-cage construction of The Palace at 4 a.m. (MOMA, New York, 1933), made of wood, glass, wire, and string. Some of his work of this period dealt with themes of sex and violence, notably Woman with her Throat Cut, a semi-abstract bronze piece whose jagged forms brutally suggest the body of a woman who has been raped and murdered (there are casts in MOMA, New York, the NG of Modern Art, Edinburgh, and elsewhere). He abandoned Surrealism in 1935 and began to work again from the model. In 1941–4 he lived in Geneva to escape the German occupation of France, but he then returned permanently to Paris. Since 1935 most of his sculpture had been very small, but in 1946 he started working on a bigger scale and in 1947 he began evolving the style for which he became famous, characterized by human figures of extremely elongated proportions and emaciated, nervous character (Man Pointing, Tate Gallery, London, 1947).

Giacometti's gaunt figures, which were sometimes disposed in groups, were interpreted by many contemporaries as reflecting the horrors of the Second World War, specifically concentration camps. More generally, they were seen as encapsulating the fragile, essentially lonely nature of human existence. Giacometti himself refrained from making pronouncements about the meaning of his sculpture, but he was a friend of the existentialist philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre, who wrote on his work, notably the introduction to the catalogue of his exhibition at the Pierre Matisse Gallery, New York, in 1948. It was this exhibition that established Giacometti's postwar reputation, and his work soon had widespread influence, seen, for example, the ‘Geometry of Fear’ sculptors who exhibited at the Venice Biennale in 1952 and in several of the entries for the competition for a Monument to the Unknown Political Prisoner in 1953 (see BUTLER, REG).

By this time Giacometti was becoming regarded as one of the outstandingly original sculptors of the 20th century, and from the late 1950s his reputation as a painter also began to increase. Most of his paintings and drawings are portraits of his family and friends; his brother Diego (1902–1985), who was a skilled technician and a lifelong assistant, was a favourite model and the subject of dozens of sculptures, paintings, and drawings. Characteristically the paintings are grey in tonality, which together with their dusty-looking surfaces and the skeletal proportions of the figures often conveys a ghostly feeling. Some of them are obsessively overpainted, an expression of the doubts and anxieties Giacometti felt about his creations. He was admired not only for the quality of his work, but also for the force of his personality, his integrity, and his devotion to his art. Throughout his career in Paris he worked in the same tiny, shabby studio, and Simone de Beauvoir, Sartre's companion, wrote of him: ‘Success, fame, money—Giacometti was indifferent to them all.’ Giacometti himself said: ‘Establishing yourself, furnishing a house, building up a comfortable existence, and having that menace hanging over your head all the time—no, I prefer to live in hotels, cafés, just passing through.’ There are examples of his work in many major collections, notably in the Giacometti Foundation at the Zurich Kunsthaus.

Alberto Giacometti

The recurring themes of the Swiss sculptor and painter Alberto Giacometti (1901-1966) are time, movement, and transparence. He is best known for his elongated figural structures.

The son of a painter, Alberto Giacometti was born in Stampa on Oct. 10, 1901. He began to draw and model at an early age, and in 1919 he enrolled at the École des Arts-et-Métiers in Geneva. He traveled in Italy in 1920-1921. He studied with the sculptor Émile Antoine Bourdelle at the Académie de la Grande-Chaumière in Paris from 1922 to 1925. After sharing a studio in Paris with his brother Diego from 1925 to 1927, Giacometti set up on his own.

Giacometti's early work derived from cubist (Torso, 1925), African, and Cycladic sculpture (Spoon Woman, 1926). But by 1928 he began to develop a personal treatment of the medium, moving to more original ideas—in part a result of his meeting that year with the surrealists, with whom he later became affiliated. In his Man and Reclining Woman Who Dreams (both 1929) he created open structures concerned principally with establishing a viable language of form and solving the technical difficulties of armature and support.

Giacometti occasionally returned to figural themes in the 1930s and early 1940s, as in Nude, Femme qui marche (1933-1934), the first of the elongated torsos, and Womanwith Chariot I (1942-1943). The latter work, evocative and immobile, is an extension of the expressive qualities stated in the major work of this period: the surrealist constructions of 1929 to 1945.

These constructions imply or state movement— Suspended Ball (1930-1931) and the Captured Hand (1932)—and sometimes border on the fantastic, as in the well-known Palace at 4 A.M. (1932-1933). They are quasirealistic, as in the Woman with Her Throat Cut (1932), and at times allusive, as in the Project for a Passage (1932). In Hands Holding the Void (1934) Giacometti brought together the figural and the fantastic and prefigured the metaphysics articulated in his postwar work.

Giacometti lived in Switzerland from 1942 until 1945, when he returned to Paris. In Switzerland he met Annette Arm, who became his wife.

Giacometti's work after 1945 was almost exclusively figural, ranging from numerous portraits of his brother and his wife to sculptures of the anonymous and universal man, pointing, standing, or walking. He found a new means of modeling and painting. In his sculpture small, anonymous patches are laid over a skeletal structure; in his paintings he used short nervous lines and monochromatic low-keyed hues. In both mediums he employed elongated proportions, either in individual parts of the figure or throughout the body as a whole.

Giacometti's compositions narrowed down to four themes: one person in an environment, as in Walking Quietly under the Rain (1949), or several people encountering each other, as in City Square (1948); single figures gesturing, such as the Man Pointing (1947); figures placed atop a pedestal or support, such as Chariot (1950); and single, gazing portraits that concentrate on the head, as in Portrait of Diego (1954) and Monumental Head (1960). Regarding this last theme, Giacometti once remarked that "all the rest of the head is a prop for the gaze." He died in Chur, Switzerland, on Jan. 12, 1966.

Further Reading

The most recent and thorough monograph on Giacometti is David Sylvester, Alberto Giacometti (1965). Peter Selz, Alberto Giacometti (1965), the exhibition catalog for the Museum of Modern Art, is short but useful. The most profound interpretation of Giacometti's imagery can be found in two essays of Jean Paul Sartre, "The Quest for the Absolute" (1948) and "The Paintings of Giacometti" (1954), both translated into English and published in Sartre's Essays in Aesthetics (1964). For another interpretation see Jacques Dupin, Alberto Giacometti (trans. 1963).

Additional Sources

Juliet, Charles, Giacometti, Paris: Hazan, 1985.

Lord, James, Giacometti, a biography, New York: Farrar, Straus, Giroux, 1985. □

Giacometti, Alberto (b Borgonovo, nr. Stampa, 10 Oct. 1901; d Chur, 11 Jan. 1966). Swiss sculptor and painter, active mainly in Paris. He was the son of Giovanni Giacometti (1868–1933), a painter influenced by Impressionism and Post-Impressionism. After short periods at the École des Arts et Métiers, Geneva, and in Italy, he moved to Paris, where he worked under Bourdelle from 1922 to 1925. In the latter year he abandoned naturalistic sculpture and began a period of restless experimentation. From 1930 to 1935 he participated in the Surrealist movement, developing a highly individual attenuated manner exemplified in the cagelike construction of The Palace at 4 a.m. (1933, MoMA, New York). In 1935, however, he abandoned Surrealism and began to work again from the model. From 1941 to 1944 he lived in Geneva to escape the German occupation of France, but he then returned permanently to Paris, and in 1947 he began evolving the style for which he became famous, characterized by the use of human figures of extremely elongated proportions and emaciated, nervous character (Man Pointing, 1947, Tate, London). These fragile, isolated figures often have a suggestion of existentialist tragedy, and Giacometti was indeed a friend of the existentialist philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre, who wrote on his work, notably the introduction to the catalogue of his exhibition at the Pierre Matisse Gallery, New York, in 1948. It was this exhibition that established Giacometti's post-war reputation, and his work soon had widespread influence, which can be seen, for example, in many of the entries for the Unknown Political Prisoner competition of 1953 (see Butler, Reg). He impressed many people not only through the quality of his work, but also by his force of personality, integrity, and devotion to his work. Simone de Beauvoir, Sartre's companion, wrote: ‘Success, fame, money—Giacometti was indifferent to them all.’ He is generally considered one of the outstandingly original sculptors of the 20th century, and from the late 1950s his reputation as a painter began to increase. Most of his paintings and drawings are portraits of his family and friends; his brother Diego (1902–85), who was a skilled technician and a lifelong assistant, was a favourite model and the subject of dozens of sculptures, paintings, and drawings (in his own right he is notable as the designer of furniture and light fittings for the Musée Picasso in Paris, 1984–5). Their cousin Augusto Giacometti (1877–1947) was a painter, one of the first to produce pure abstracts.

Giacometti, Alberto (1901–66). Swiss sculptor and painter, active mainly in Paris. He was the son of Giovanni Giacometti (1868–1933), a painter influenced by Impressionism and Post-Impressionism. After short periods at the École des Arts et Métiers, Geneva, and in Italy, he moved to Paris, where he worked under Bourdelle from 1922 to 1925. He abandoned naturalistic sculpture in 1925, however, and went through a period of restless experimentation. From 1930 to 1935 he participated in the Surrealist movement, developing a highly individual attenuated manner exemplified in the cage-like construction of The Palace at 4 a.m. (1933, MoMA, New York). In 1935, however, he abandoned Surrealism and began to work again from the model. From 1941 to 1944 he lived in Geneva to escape the German occupation of France, but he then returned permanently to Paris, and in 1947 he began evolving the style for which he became famous, characterized by human figures of extremely elongated proportions and emaciated, nervous character (Man Pointing, 1947, Tate, London). These fragile, isolated figures often have a suggestion of existentialist tragedy, and Giacometti was indeed a friend of the exist entialist philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre, who wrote on his work, notably the introduction to the catalogue of his exhibition at the Pierre Matisse Gallery, New York, in 1948. It was this exhibition that established Giacometti's post-war reputation, and his work soon had widespread influence, which can be seen, for example, in many of the entries for the ‘Unknown Political Prisoner’ competition of 1953 (see Butler, reg). He impressed many people not only through the quality of his work, but also by his force of personality, integrity, and devotion to his work. Simone de Beauvoir, Sartre's companion, wrote: ‘Success, fame, money—Giacometti was indifferent to them all.’ He is generally considered one of the outstandingly original sculptors of the 20th century, and from the late 1950s his reputation as a painter began to increase. Most of his paintings and drawings are portraits of his family and friends; his brother Diego (1902–85), who was a skilled technician and a lifelong assistant, was a favourite model and the subject of dozens of sculptures, paintings, and drawings (in his own right he is notable as the designer of furniture and light fittings for the Musée Picasso in Paris, 1984–5). Their cousin Augusto Giacometti (1877–1947) was a painter, one of the first to produce pure abstracts.

Alberto Giacometti , 1901-66, Swiss sculptor and painter; son of the impressionist painter Giovannia Giacometti; b. Stampa. He settled in Paris in 1922, studying with Bourdelle and becoming associated first with the cubists and then the surrealists (see cubism ; surrealism ). His Slaughtered Woman (1932; Mus. of Modern Art, New York City), for example, is a violent surrealist work. Giacometti abandoned surrealist images in 1935. In the 1930s and thereafter, he created highly original sculptures of elongated, emaciated human figures, usually in bronze. He also made open cagelike structures (e.g., The Palace at 4 descr='[AM]', 1933; Mus. of Modern Art, New York City) that were equally powerful.

Giacometti's haunting, anguished images have been described as perfect expressions of existentialist pessimism. In the early 1940s he created works on a drastically reduced scale. In his later years he again formed tall, slender, roughly worked figures that are among his most impressive sculptures. In his mature work, he concentrated on three basic themes for his attenuated figures—the seated portrait, the walking man, and the standing female nude, the latter two often with tiny shrunken heads and enormous, rooted feet. Giacometti's imagery and his plastic technique have had an extensive influence on modern sculpture. Many of his oil paintings and drawings, notably his portraits with their delicate, weblike tangle of lines, are also works of great distinction.

Bibliography: See biography by J. Lord (1985); catalog of the Museum of Modern Art (1965); drawings ed. by J. Lord (1971); J. Lord, Giacometti Portrait (1965), studies by R. Hohl (1971) and D. Sylvester (1996).

Giacometti, Alberto (1901–66) Swiss sculptor and painter, influenced by surrealism. During the 1940s and 1950s, he produced his most characteristic works: emaciated, dream-like figures built of plaster on a wire base. His paintings have the same agitated, visionary quality.