Alberto Giacometti

“I make pictures and sculpture to attack reality, to defend myself against death and to be as free as possible.”

Alberto Giacometti, a Swiss sculptor painter and drawer, developed in the 1940 ies a depicition where movement and vision meet.

“Femme Bras Tronqués” is a very typical example of his later works. The long and strait forms make us think of Etruscan art.

Biography:
Giacometti was born 1901 in Borgonova in Switzerland and died 1966 in Chur. His father Giaovanni – a post-impressionist – was his first teacher.

He studied 1919-20 in Geneve and in Paris he followed the teaching of Antoine Bourdelle. He became familiar with cubism and cykladic sculpture andtook part in surrealism 1929-35.

He was awarded the Carnegie International prize for sculpture 1961 in Pittsburgh and the next year the first prize of sculpture on the Venetzian biennale.

Statement:
“One day when I was drawing a young girl, I suddenly noticed that the only thing that was alive was her gaze. The rest of her head meant no more to me than the skull of a dead man. One does want to sculpt a living person, but what makes him alive is without doubt his gaze… Everything else is only the framework for the gaze.

Born: 1901
Died: 1966