Alberto Giacometti

(Swiss, 1901-1966)

“I paint and sculpt to get a grip on reality…to protect myself.”
— Alberto Giacometti

Sculptor Alberto Giacometti is best known for his bronze sculptures that spoke to human angst and resilience, and the frailty of the human condition in the Post-WWII period. His work helped to revitalize sculpture at a time when most attention was focused on painting. Existentialist Jean-Paul Sartre famously described his Walking Figures as “halfway between nothingness and being.” Although he was internationally famous, he didn’t seek fame. He was really obsessed with what he did, and he didn’t do it for any other reason than to do his best. He struggled and went through different phases in his career, but produced an exceptional body of work.

Born in Borgonovo, Switzerland, Giacometti was the eldest of four children to Post-Impressionist painter Giovanni Giacometti and Annetta Giacometti-Stampa. His father being an artist, Giacometti was interested in art early in his life. He attended the Geneva School of Fine Arts during the winter of 1919-20 and proceeded to visit Venice, Padua, Florence, and Rome where he studied different styles of art. Between 1922-25 he studied at the Académie de la Grande-Chaumiére in Paris where he was taught by Émile-Antoine Bourdelle, although their styles varied greatly.

Giacometti’s contemporaries include Picasso, Miró, Max, and Balthus, and each inspired him and influenced his approaches and his unique artistic techniques. Giacometti adapted a Cubist style for his sculptures, inspired by Henri Laurens and Jacques Lipchitz. African and Oceanic art also played a role in developing his style. During 1925-29, his sculptures embraced Surrealism and moved away from Realism. When his father passed away in 1933, Giacometti experimented with metaphorical compositions using life and death as his themes, creating works such as Hands Holding the Void and 1+1=3. In the ‘30’s and ‘40s, he was known as a fashionable Surrealist artist, but in 1935, he left the movement and the rushing current of European modernism, returning instead to the human figure. He became increasingly preoccupied with the human figure as an evergreen subject of artists throughout time, and as a key to understanding something vital about perception and nature the figures of Egyptian antiquity particularly intrigued him; he enjoyed that they were made for the tombs of the dead - that they were between life and death. He felt deeply that life is fragile, that death always waits just beneath the skin.

At the onset of World War II, Alberto and his brother, Diego, fled Paris and traveled to southern France by bicycle. They resided there briefly before returning to Paris, then relocating to Geneva by 1941. During these turbulent times, the artist came to see himself as standing in the existential tradition. He aligned intellectually with the existentialists, and his best-known works ask existential questions about humanness and human delicacy in the post-Holocaust world. He produced his famous coarsely textured, elongated, de-fleshed figures with thin heads and limbs. Existentialist writers and philosophers like Jean-Paul Sartre embraced Giacometti, but not Parisian museums. However, the artist didn’t mind being out of the mainstream and ultimately found success for staying true to his vision. He rocketed to fame with his massless figures in 1948-50, particularly in the United States through two exhibitions in New York City at the Pierre Matisse Gallery.

Giacometti passed away in 1966. Each of his works conveys both an intangible sense and yet, also a brute, sensual imagining of how we exist as humans. His sculptures are both abstracted and visceral. The viewer is invited to perceive the artwork as if it were alive in front of them, despite being a stylized portrait. Through this experiential quality and his existential content, he became an iconic twentieth century artist. His work has had several solo exhibitions worldwide including in Moscow, Istanbul, Paris, South America, and more. Prices for his work have shot above $100 million, making him the most expensive sculptor ever as of 2017. His study in human resilience and frailty remains relevant and admired in the canon of art history, and his legacy lives on in the work he left behind, much of which is currently on display in numerous public collections.

American Fine Art, Inc. is proud to feature the original works and limited editions of Alberto Giacometti. Visit our 12,000 sq. ft. showroom in Scottsdale, Arizona or call today. Our website is offered only as a limited place to browse or refresh your memory and is not a reflection of our current inventory. To learn more about collecting, pricing, value, or any other art information, please contact one of our International Art Consultants. We look forward to giving you the one on one attention you deserve when building your fine art collection. We hope you find our website helpful and look forward to seeing you in Scottsdale soon.