A bronze statue by Swiss sculptor Alberto Giacometti has broken the record for a work of art at auction, selling for $104.3 million (SFr110.67 million) at Sotheby's in London.
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The price eclipsed Picasso’s Garçon à la Pipe, which fetched $104.2 million in New York in 2004.
The life-size L’homme qui marche I (Walking Man I) was the first time a Giacometti figure of a walking man on such a large scale had come to auction in over 20 years, and its hammer price was around four times the auctioneer’s pre-sale expectations.
The statue was sold by German banking firm Commerzbank AG, which acquired it when it took over Dresdner Bank in 2009. Dresdner acquired the sculpture in 1980.
The record was reached in just eight minutes of “fast and furious” bidding, according to Sotheby’s, with at least ten potential purchasers battling it out for the rare work in a hushed sale room.
Sotheby’s did not identify the buyer, saying only that it was an anonymous telephone bidder.
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How Giacometti’s art walks like an Egyptian
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A new exhibition at Zurich’s Kunsthaus fine arts museum sets Giacometti’s modern works against the backdrop of relics from ancient Egypt. The similarities are striking. Giacometti (1901-1966) is most famous for his sculptures of slender, elongated figures, including his “walking men”. His work is highly prized – his Grande femme debout II (Tall woman standing…
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A major retrospective, with a special focus on his little-known Geneva period (1941-1946), is on show at Geneva’s Rath Museum. The exhibition, which spans his entire career, puts the spotlight on the 1935-1946 transitional period from his Surrealist objects to the slender, elongated figures he produced after the war. At the time Giacometti underwent one…
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This is the first important retrospective of his work in French-speaking Switzerland and comprises over 70 sculptures, 20 paintings, as well as objects, drawings, notebooks and photographs. Two rooms are devoted to his Geneva period.
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If you want to start a conversation about a topic raised in this article or want to report factual errors, email us at english@swissinfo.ch.