Alberto GIACOMETTI

Biography

Alberto Giacometti was born on October 10, 1901, in Borgonovo, a small village in the canton of Grisons, in Italian-speaking Switzerland. He was the son of the post-Impressionist painter Giovanni Giacometti, who introduced him early to art and fostered his love for drawing and painting. From adolescence, Alberto displayed remarkable talent as a sculptor, producing his first works at the age of thirteen — expressive heads and busts already revealing a strong individuality.

In 1919, he entered the School of Fine Arts in Geneva, where he studied drawing and painting. Three years later, he moved to Paris to study at the Académie de la Grande Chaumière under Antoine Bourdelle, a former pupil of Rodin. There, he discovered the avant-garde movements and developed a passion for Cubism and Surrealism.

During the 1920s and 1930s, Giacometti moved in the vibrant intellectual and artistic circles of Montparnasse. He met André Breton, Jean Cocteau, Louis Aragon, and Salvador Dalí, briefly joining the Surrealist movement. His sculptures of this period were dreamlike and symbolic, seeking to materialize mental visions rather than depict external reality. Works such as The Dreaming Woman (1929) or Disagreeable Object to Throw Away (1931) reflect this experimental spirit.

By the early 1930s, Giacometti distanced himself from Surrealism. Obsessed with representing the human face, he embarked on a lifelong search for inner likeness — the essence of presence rather than its outward form. His brother Diego, a constant model, and his future wife Annette Arm became central subjects of this exploration.

After World War II, Giacometti developed his most iconic style: elongated, slender figures, fragile yet powerful, filled with existential tension. These silhouettes — solitary or grouped in empty space — express the loneliness of modern man and the anxiety of post-war existence. Masterpieces like Walking Man, Standing Woman, and The Square became universal symbols of the human condition.

His work resonated deeply with existentialist thinkers such as Jean-Paul Sartre, who called him the artist of “man in situation.” Giacometti also produced intense portraits and drawings, their thin lines charged with the same pursuit of truth as his sculptures.

International exhibitions, including the Venice Biennale (1956) and the Galerie Maeght, earned him worldwide acclaim. In 1962, he received the Grand Prize for Sculpture at the Venice Biennale, securing his place among the greatest artists of the 20th century.

Until his death, Giacometti worked tirelessly in his modest, dust-covered studio on Rue Hippolyte-Maindron in Paris. He died in Chur, Switzerland, on January 11, 1966, at the age of 64.