Alberto Giacometti: Toward the Ultimate Figure

This book provides a comprehensive survey of the work of Swiss artist Alberto Giacometti, featuring over 100 sculptures, paintings, drawings, and prints. It explores his early and mid-career development, focusing on his distinct figural style, the influence of landscape, and his collaborations with poets and writers. The exhibition schedule includes venues in Cleveland, Seattle, Houston, and Kansas City.

Format: Hardback
Length: 240 pages
Publication date: 08 April 2022
Publisher: Yale University Press

This comprehensive survey of the legendary Swiss artist's work showcases over 100 of his sculptures, paintings, drawings, and prints. This lavishly illustrated retrospective explores the early and mid-career development of Alberto Giacometti (1901–1966), delving into the emergence of his distinct figural style through a series of walking men, elongated standing women, and numerous busts. Rare paintings and drawings from his formative period reveal the significant role of landscape in Giacometti's work, while also showcasing the influence of the post-impressionist painters surrounding his father, the artist Giovanni Giacometti. Other areas of inquiry explored in this book include Giacometti's studio practice, his obsessive focus on depicting the human head, his collaborations with poets and writers, and the development of the walking man sculpture, supported by numerous drawings, many of which have never been shown before. Original essays by modern art and Giacometti specialists shed new light on era-defining sculptural masterpieces such as the Walking Man, the Nose, and the Chariot, or on key aspects of his work, including the significance of surrealism, his drawing practice, or the question of space.

Distributed for the Cleveland Museum of Art, this exhibition will be on display from March 12 to June 12, 2022, at the Cleveland Museum of Art. It will then travel to Seattle Art Museum from July 14 to October 9, 2022, before making its way to the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, from November 13, 2022, to February 12, 2023. Finally, it will be showcased at the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, from March 19 to June 18, 2023.

Weight: 1612g
Dimension: 240 x 313 x 27 (mm)
ISBN-13: 9780300263916