Alberto Giacometti

Alberto Giacometti (1901-1966) was the son of the Swiss painter Giovanni Giacometti. Born and raised in Val Bregaglia, after 1922 he lived primarily inParis following studies in Geneva and Rome. He created a stir among the Surrealists in the thirties, and was active as a lamp and vase designer. He developed his noted late work, extremely thin bronze figures symbolic of human existence, during and after World War II. Extremely self-critical, he consistently attempted to fathom the outer appearance and inner essence of the human being in its relationship to himself as a sculptor, painter, and draftsman. The idea that space and time were as one was central to his concept: the depiction of movement, but also the movement of the viewer, is linked to the period of time in which it occurs as well as the space it transverses.