A comprehensive survey of the work of the legendary Swiss artist, this book illustrates and examines more than 100 of his sculptures, paintings, drawings, and prints This lavishly illustrated retrospective traces the early and midcareer development of the preeminent Swiss artist Alberto Giacometti (1901-1966), examining the emergence of his distinct figural style through works including a series of walking men, elongated standing women, and numerous busts. Rare paintings and drawings from his formative period show the significance of landscape in Giacometti's work, while also revealing the influence of the postimpressionist painters that surrounded his father, the artist Giovanni Giacometti. Other areas of inquiry on which Alberto Giacometti casts new light are his studio practice--amply illustrated with photographs--his obsessive focus on depicting the human head, his collaborations with poets and writers, and his development of the walking man sculpture, thanks to numerous drawings, many of which have never been shown. Original essays by modern art and Giacometti specialists shed new light on era-defining sculptural masterpieces, including the Walking Man, the Nose, and the Chariot, or on key aspects of his work, such as the significance of surrealism, his drawing practice, or the question of space.

Gathered writings from the seminal 20th-century Swiss artist Alberto Giacometti Alberto Giacometti's early Surrealist and Cubist forms, compact volumes inspired by Africa and the Cyclades, eventually led this seminal twentieth-century Swiss artist to acknowledge a formal void that he would spend the balance of his career filling with the human figure. In the mid-1930s, influenced by the terrible social and political changes that were taking place across Europe, Giacometti began to develop heads and nudes in a signature style--they were universally elongated, skeletal, haunting, solitary and above all, transcendent. Giacometti's written testimony and reflections on his change of perspective, and on his artistic ideas and goals, are remarkable for their aptness and poetic quality. In his writings, gathered here, the artist pours out his doubts, his suffering and his creative hopes as very few artists have been capable of doing before or since.

This book looks at a refined selection of drawings by Alberto Giacometti and examines them against the background provided by more than one hundred letters exchanged between Giacometti and his parents, the majority of which have not previously been published. The choice of drawings and the selected correspondence illuminate important aspects of the development of Giacometti's work over five decades of his life. Furthermore, Patrick de Vries examines Alberto Giacometti's friendships with important contemporary artists such as Pablo Picasso, Francis Gruber, Balthus, and Tal-Coat, and discloses the artists' views of each other, as well as links and dissimilarities in their work. Discussions with Giacometti's friend, the Japanese philosopher Isaku Yanaihara, reveal interesting insights into the, rarely discussed, subject of Giacometti's fascination with East Asian Art.

Alberto Giacometti forged a singular path within European Modernism, restlessly seeking a new language for sculpture as the double of reality. His quest brought him into close, face-to-face contact with some of the most influential intellectuals of the twentieth century--including Georges Bataille, Jean Genet, and Samuel Beckett. Tracing how these literary friendships molded the artist's creative development, Alberto Giacometti: Face to Face discovers new continuities among the various strains of modernist thought and develops a fresh approach to Giacometti and his work. This accessible overview of Giacometti's career is illustrated by more than 150 reproductions of his sculptures and paintings as well as excerpts from the literature that shaped his ideas, tracking the evolution of his work from post-cubism through surrealism and into post-war realism.

"Space does not exist," the Swiss sculptor Alberto Giacometti (1901-1966) wrote in 1949. "It has to be created... Every sculpture made on the assumption that space exists is wrong, there is only the illusion of space." This fascinating statement serves as a conceptual underpinning for Hatje Cantz's new appraisal of the artist's mature work. Giacometti's emaciated sculptures have long been seen as symbols of a newly anxious, frail humanity. But more recently, attention has come to focus on the relevance of his work for contemporary considerations of space and time. Alberto Giacometti: The Origin of Space supplies a comprehensive overview of the later works of this lastingly influential artist, presenting 200 color images of sculptures, paintings and drawings.

"Part of the Tate Introductions series, this richly illustrated and accessible book provides an engaging and concise account of Giacometti's work and life. It explores the story of the artist's evolution, from his first sketchbooks and professional works of art through his extraordinary Surrealist compositions, to the emergence of his mature style." --Publisher's decsription.

Laurie Wilson shows how Giacometti's secret beliefs & emotional scars are reflected in his sculpture, drawings & paintings.

Photographs by Ernst Scheidegger of Alberto Giacometti and his art work.

Meet the Artist: Alberto Giacometti is packed with inspiring art-based activities for budding young artists, who can create interesting portraits, sculptures, and collage landscapes. Starting with a brief introduction to the life of Alberto Giacometti (1901-1966), an important Italian sculptor best known for his distinctive elongated figures, the book then offers a series of creative activities that explore prominent themes and ideas in the artist's work. Featuring beautiful reproductions of actual artworks, and illustrated by a leading contemporary illustrator, this book, like all titles in the Meet the Artist series, encourages children to use art as an avenue for exploring ideas and expressing their own experiences.

Webster J. Duck turns to several animals when he tries to find his mother.