1) Alberto Giacometti was a leading 20th century Swiss sculptor known for his elongated, emaciated figures placed in vast empty spaces. 2) He began as a Surrealist but later created tiny figures from memory during World War 2 that became increasingly smaller, terrifying him. 3) Upon his return to Paris, he began casting the figures in bronze on enormous bases, amplifying their alienation and insignificance. 4) His lonely, anonymous figures seem to wander aimlessly in an infinite emptiness, seeking their way in the world.

1. Art 109A: Contemporary Art (Arts Since 1945)
Westchester Community College
Alberto Giacometti
(1901-1966)

2. Alberto Giacometti
Swiss-born
Leading sculptor in Paris
Began as a Surrealist
Irving Penn, Alberto Giacometti, 1950. Art Institute of Chicago
Alberto Giacometti, The Palace at 4 a.m..,
1932-33. Construction in wood, glass, wire,
string MOMA

3. Alberto Giacometti
Took refuge in Switzerland during the
war where he worked on tiny figure
sculptures done from memory
Henri Cartier-Bresson, Alberto Giacametti
Image source: http://ionarts.blogspot.com/2005/02/giacometti-
and-cartier-bresson.html
“Wanting to create from memory what I have seen .
. to my terror the sculptures became smaller and
smaller . . .”
Alberto Giacometti

4. Alberto Giacometti
Upon his return to Paris he began
casting them in bronze, and placing
them on enormous bases
Gordon Parks, Alberto Giacometti, 1951
LIFE Magazine

5. Alberto Giacometti
His work typically consists of strangely
elongated figures, alone or in groups,
occupying vast tracts of empty space
Alberto Giacometti, The City Square, 1948-49
Museum of Modern Art

6. Alberto Giacometti
Cast bronze is a medium usually
associated with monumental size, and
heroic connotations
Alberto Giacometti, The City Square, 1948-49
Museum of Modern Art
Auguste Rodin, Age of Bronze, 1876/1906
Metropolitan Museum

7. Giacometti’s figures are diminutive, and appear fragile and frail . . . .

8. Image source: http://www.flickr.com/photos/profzucker/3256792359/sizes/l/
Their insignificance and alienation is further amplified by the size of
the bases he made for them, creating a vast expanse of space that
seems to envelop them

9. Featureless and anonymous, Giacometti’s lonely figures seem to wander aimlessly through
what Simone de Beauvoir called an “infinite and terrifying emptiness of space,” as each
seeks to “make their way” in the world.

10. Alberto Giacometti
1945 began working on a larger scale
Henri Cartier-Bresson, Giacometti in his Studio, c. 1952.
Wikipedia
“But then to my surprise, [the figures] achieved a
likeness only when tall and slender.”
Alberto Giacometti

11. Alberto Giacometti, Man Pointing, 1947
Museum of Modern Art
Alberto Giacometti. Walking Man, 1960 (cast 1981). Fondation
Alberto et Annette Giacometti, Paris © Adagp

12. Alberto Giacometti, Man Pointing, 1947
Museum of Modern Art
Bronze Statue of Zeus from Artemesion, c. 460 BCE. National
Archaeological Museum, Athens
Based on a famous Greek
statue depicting the Olympian
god Zeus, Giacometti’s Man
Pointing reflects the
Existentialist rejection of
Humanism in its expression
of the unbearable loneliness
and fragility of human
existence

13. Alberto Giacometti, Man Pointing (L’homme au doigt), 1947. Bronze with
patina and hand-painted by the artist. Height: 69 7/8″. Christies
Tall and slender to the point of
emaciation, the man points
into the infinite space that
surrounds him

14. “Man – and man alone – reduced to a thread – in the dilapidating
and misery of the world – who searches for himself – starting
from nothing.”
Francis Ponge, “Reflections on the Statuettes, Figures and Paintings by
Alberto Giacometti”

15. Alberto Giacometti
Sartre embraced Giacometti as the
preeminent existentialist artist
He wrote an essay for Giacometti’s
1948 exhibition in New York
Gjon Mili, Jean Paul Sartre, Paris, 1946
LIFE

16. Alberto Giacometti
Sartre likened Giacometti’s work to
prehistoric cave painting
Alberto Giacometti, Head of a Man on a Rod, Bronze, 1947
Museum of Modern Art
“. . . neither the beautiful nor the ugly yet existed,
neither taste nor people possessing it.”
Jean Paul Sartre

17. Alberto Giacometti
He also discussed the artist’s
manipulation of perception
Phenomenological size: scale is
determined by our relation to the
work
Gordon Parks, Skeletal Giacometti sculpture on Parisian street, 2005
LIFE Magazine

18. “They are moving outlines, always half-
way between nothingness and being”
Jean Paul Sartre
View of the sculpture “Three Men Walking”, made by painter and sculptor Alberto Giacometti (1901-1966) at the Fondation Beyeler in Switzerland. Image source: Georgios
Kefalas

19. Alberto Giacometti
Gordon Parks, Skeletal Giacometti sculpture on Parisian street, 2005
LIFE Magazine
Giacometti “shows us that man is not there
first and to be seen afterwards, but that he
is a being whose essence is to exist for
others.”
Jean Paul Sartre

20. Alberto Giacometti
Alberto Giacometti, The Chariot, 1950. Museum of Modern Art
“At first glance we seem to be up against
the fleshless martyrs of Buchenwald”

21. Alberto Giacometti
“But a moment later we have a quite different
conception; these fine and slender natures rise up
to heaven, we seem to have come across a group of
Ascensions, of Assumptions”
Jean Paul Sartre