Alberto Giacometti – Master of matchstick-thin figures

Children can sometimes be quite difficult to get excited about art – but not if you introduce them to the works of Alberto Giacometti . Of course, Giacometti isn't just an artist for children; he's one of the most important sculptors of the 20th century .

Giacometti showed early, almost innate talent; his uncle Augusto was a renowned painter who also participated in the Zurich Dada circle with his abstract compositions . His father also earned his living through painting, and Giacometti's godfather was the Swiss painter Cuno Amiet, the "Bonnard of Switzerland," who belonged to Paul Gauguin's Pont-Aven circle and also worked for a long time in the expressionist Dresden artists' association "Die Brücke" (The Bridge).

Accordingly, the Giacometti children were encouraged; all the Giacomettis learned to draw and model, Alberto's brother Bruno chose architecture as his profession, and his brother Diego became a sculptor and furniture designer.

Alberto himself produced his first precise drawings based on Dürer's copperplate engravings at the age of 12 and painted still lifes in oil; a year later, he sculpted his brothers' heads as his first works. Besides these displays of artistic talent, he was also an exceptionally good student ; even in secondary school, he was allowed to set up his own room as a studio.

At 18, he had decided on a career as an artist, left school before graduating from high school, and began studying art in Geneva in the autumn of 1919, focusing on painting, drawing, and sculpture.

In 1920, he accompanied his father to the Venice Biennale, where he studied Tintoretto and Giotto's frescoes and was impressed by the works of Alexander Archipenko and Paul Cézanne. In 1921, he broadened these impressions on an extended study trip through Italy, and in 1922 he moved to Paris, where he would primarily reside from then on.

Giacometti took further courses here, in sculpture and life drawing. In 1925, his teacher Émile-Antoine Bourdelle enabled him to have his first exhibition at the Salon des Tuileries. In the same year, he and his brother Diego, who had followed him to Paris, moved into their first studio together. The studio was located in Montparnasse, at the time probably the most creative district in Paris,and the brothers thus became acquainted with numerous other creative people who introduced them to further acquaintances.

This sometimes brought them work to earn a living; for example, through Man Ray, met the furniture designer Jean-Michel Frank, for whom they produced home accessories. He recommended them to the well-to-do society of Paris, and they created jewelry for the fashion designer Elsa Schiaparelli and sculptures for a viscount.

But of course, this place of residence also provided tremendous artistic inspiration; the brothers met personalities such as Louis Aragon and Hans Arp, Alexander Calder and André Breton, Jean Cocteau and Max Ernst, Joan Miró and Jacques Prévert, and many became friends.

Alberto proved to be more gifted and capable of development in this circle than his brother, who increasingly became his closest collaborator, while Alberto participated in group exhibitions in the early 1930s, joined Breton's Surrealist group , learned etching and copper engraving, and produced illustrations.

However, when he began modeling more after nature again around 1935, Breton saw this as a betrayal of the Surrealists, Giacometti withdrew from the group and consequently lost many friends.

Shortly before, his beloved father had also died, and Giacometti fell into a creative crisis, from which he was only freed about two years later by a new captivating model (Isabel Delmer) and the beginning of his friendship with Picasso

Giacometti suffered another setback in 1938 when he was seriously injured in a traffic accident, which left him with a limp and which some interpreters attribute to the oversized feet of his sculptures. But his career took a turn for the better when he met Jean-Paul Sartre and Simone de Beauvoir in 1939; like Sartre, he was interested in philosophical phenomenology, which, however, did not result in a written work but was embodied in walnut-sized sculptures.

Giacometti was also able to exhibit at the Swiss National Exhibition in Zurich in 1939, however, a larger work than the miniature figures currently being produced had to be brought in.

A short time later, Giacometti's new artistic form of expression in miniature sculptures would prove remarkably timely: he was able to quickly bury them in his studio before the German Wehrmacht invaded Paris, before fleeing to Geneva and waiting out World War II in Switzerland. At the end of 1945, he returned to Paris and moved in with Annette Arm, whom he married in 1949.

During the war, Giacometti had remained committed to the miniature format; now his sculptures became ever thinner and longer, these “pin figures” made him internationally successful: in 1948 he exhibited in New York for the first time and was celebrated by critics, and wealthy collectors also took notice and bought his work.

In the early 1950s, the slender figures circulated in European exhibitions and were enthusiastically received; Giacometti received commissions for etchings, portrayed Henri Matisse for a commemorative coin shortly before his death, and worked on the group “Les Femmes de Venise”, which he exhibited in the French Pavilion at the Venice Biennale in 1956.

In 1957 he drew Igor Stravinsky and portrayed Jean Genet, who reciprocated with a much-praised book about the artist; in 1959 Giacometti was featured at documenta II; he exhibited a work in Kassel that belonged to a never-completed group design for the New York Chase Manhattan Bank, the “Trois hommes qui marchent” from 1947.

The now world-famous artist received large sums for his works, indulged in a dubious affair (which lasted until his death), but also distributed considerable money to his relatives and his wife. In 1961, he created the stage design for Samuel Beckett's new production of "Waiting for Godot," and his international fame was definitively confirmed at the 1962 Venice Biennale, where he received the Grand Prize for Sculpture.

The artist, who died in 1966 and considered “large figures wrong and very small ones unacceptable”, will forever remain unforgettable to us through his matchstick-thin figuresthat touch the viewer in a very unique way.

For further reading about this fascinating artist, we recommend the following work (conveniently available from Amazon). This publication presents Alberto Giacometti's mature work in a comprehensive overview. Using a wide variety of sculptures—including bronzes and some of the artist's original plaster casts—as well as paintings and drawings, this richly illustrated volume offers a multifaceted insight into the captivating work of one of the most important artists of the 20th century.

The following short video is the first installment in a portrait series about this great artist. The portrait includes original footage of Alberto Giacometti at work. You can follow the creation of a painting and a sculpture, among other things. Enjoy!