There are only a few artists of the last century whose works are more recognisable than those of Alberto Giacometti. A celebrated group of plaster sculptures will be brought together for the first time since they were made in 1956 for the Tate Modern’s major Giacometti retrospective, which opened on Wednesday in London.
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All six ‘Women of Venice’ plaster works created for the 1956 Venice Biennale will be reunited for the first time in 60 years. They will be shown alongside two further plaster sculptures from this series, which Giacometti unveiled at the Kunsthalle Bern that same year. The works have been specially restored and reassembled for the Tate ModernExternal link’s exhibition by the Fondation Alberto et Annette Giacometti, Paris. It will offer a unique opportunity to see this important group of fragile works as the artist originally intended.
Bronze figures are what first comes to mind when many people think of Giacometti. They are what he is most famous for, after all. The exhibition wants to try and reposition him, showing off his interest in a much broader range of materials, such as plaster, clay and paint. Over the course of about three weeks, Giacometti moulded each of the ‘Women of Venice’ in clay before casting them in plaster and reworking them with a knife to further accentuate their surface.
The influence that Giacometti’s personal relationships had on his work is another factor that has been included in the Tate Modern’s exhibition. It looks at the most important: his wife Annette Giacometti, his brother Diego and his late mistress Caroline, and how they affected what he created. The artist often used friends and family as models, and one room focuses specifically on portraits of Diego and Annette, with the purpose of highlighting how closely Giacometti observed human faces and figures.
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Alberto Giacometti was one of the major sculptors of the 20th century. He regularly spent time in his native village of Stampa in the Bregaglia Valley in canton Graubünden, and now his studio has now been opened to the general public. (SRF/swissinfo.ch)
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Giacometti was born in Bregaglia in southern Switzerland, and frequently returned home. The “Giacometti Art Walk” application for smartphones leads the user to key places in the artist’s life, in nearby Sils in the Engadine valley and Chiavenna just across the border in Italy, and explains their significance. Based on stories gathered from people living…
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“L’homme au doigt” (Pointing man), a 1947 sculpture by Swiss artist Alberto Giacometti (1901-1966), has set a world record for a sculpture. The bronze figure sold for $141.3 million (CHF132 million) in New York on Monday night. This was in line with the pre-sale estimate of about $130 million. Auction house Christie’s did not reveal…
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$101 million (CHF 97.48 million) was recently paid at a Sotheby’s auction for his sculpture, “The Chariot” from 1950. In 2013, “Bust of Diego” from 1955 sold for $50 million (CHF 48.3 million) at Sotheby’s. The bust of his brother is considered one of his best works. In 2010, the spindly bronze “Walking Man” from…
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The photographs appear in the second edition of the renowned book Alberto Giacometti – Spuren einer Freundschaft (Alberto Giacometti – Traces of a Friendship). The images were taken in the places where the sculptor lived and worked: in Bergell and Paris. They are personal, intimate glimpses of the artist, as well as documenting his sculptures…
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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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