Alberto Giacometti

[Bushmiller]

Visited the exhibition of surreal art in Brissy yesterday. Interesting and SWMBO commented that it was very "dark." I explained it was the lighting. We were originally going for a picnic for my daughter's birthday, but the weather was too unpredictable.

Now to the point. I saw some of Giacometti's early sculptures, but they were not those with which I was familiar. Those I know are elongated and narrow particularly around the head as he had developed quite an interest in portraits in the later part of this life.

The sculptures are so distinctive that you can pick them even if you don't know the individual piece.

I had been led to believe the reason for these exaggeratedly narrow sculptures was that he suffered from an eye deformity (astigmatism?) However I can find no mention of this.

The second snipet was that he was very critical of his own work and would destroy it if he wasn't completely happy.The only way works were completed was because his brother used to whip them away when he wasn't looking and have them cast.

Does anybody have information of either of these comments?

Incidentally in reasearching old Alberto I found that this piece, L'Homme qui marche 1 (Walking Man), was sold for a world record. UK Pounds 65,001,250. Yup, more than A$100m!

Regards
Paul

[underfoot]

Does anybody have information of either of these comments?
l

not sure I can answer either Bm, but I did stumble across a retrospective of his brother Diego's work in a tiny Swiss town (Flims) in 2007, they shared a studio for most of their working lives and you can certainly see similarities.
I reckon the reason for Alberto's tall stick like figures is because of the size of their studio in Paris, it was miniscule and with two blokes working in it those figures were all that would fit...none of that helps huh

[Claw Hama]

I looked when I was in Paris last year for his work but couldn't find any I thought after all his visits to the Louvre they would have had some but no.

[Bushmiller]

Thanks Undie and CH.

In a way, as I could not corroborate my statements via the net, I was not expecting conformation of this: Just hopeful.

After I left school, quite some time ago, I was "looking" for myself and enrolled in sculpture classes. It was one of my tutors who told me these things.

Alberto certainly had a very close relationship with his brother and, as you say, they worked together.

Regards
Paul