Alberto Giacometti

Alberto Giacometti (1901-1966) was a Swiss artist. During his youth, he was encouraged by his father, a painter by profession, to take up drawing, particularly portraiture. After studying at the École des Beaux-Arts in Geneva, he moved to Paris in 1922. He became a student of Antoine Bourdelle at the Académie de la Grande Chaumière. He frequented the artists of Montparnasse, a district that became his creative center. His first important works were influenced by Cubism and Surrealism, dominant in the 1930s, but also by African and Oceanic art. He became friends with writers, exhibited alongside Joan Miró and Jean Arp, and joined the Surrealist movement from 1931 to 1935. Giacometti was then interested in a symbolic form of reality, seeking to move away from the faithful reproduction of nature. In 1935 he returned to figuration, focusing on the live model, which led to his exclusion from the Surrealist group by André Breton. From this point on, his work focused solely on the essence of the human figure, drawing inspiration in particular from Picasso.