#000165
Alberto Giacometti
Peter Selz (intro)
This is the catalogue of the Museum of Modern Art's 1965 Alberto Giacometti retrospective, with an introduction by the curator Peter Selz and an autobiographical statement by the artist himself. Published by MoMA (and distributed by Doubleday) to accompany a show that traveled on to Chicago, Los Angeles, and San Francisco, it gathers some 140 works and reproduces them across black-and-white and color plates. Giacometti - the Swiss sculptor of those unmistakable attenuated, walking figures - was near the end of his life when the exhibition opened, and the catalogue has the feel of a summing-up. Selz's essay and the artist's own 1947 letter to dealer Pierre Matisse frame the work with unusual intimacy. For anyone drawn to postwar sculpture or to Giacometti's existential vision, it is a fine period document.
more…less ▴
The artist
Alberto Giacometti (1901-1966) was a Swiss sculptor and painter associated first with Surrealism and later with a solitary, existential figuration - thin, eroded human forms that seem to recede even as you approach. By 1965 he was among the most celebrated artists in Europe.
The book
Produced for MoMA's 1965 retrospective, the catalogue carries an introductory note by curator Peter Selz, a chronology, and Giacometti's own autobiographical statement (a translated 1947 letter to Pierre Matisse). It documents about 140 works with plates and a bibliography.
How to read it
As an exhibition catalogue it is a snapshot of how Giacometti was understood at the height of his fame, months before his death - more primary source than modern monograph, and valuable precisely for that.
For more context
Pair it with James Lord's biography of Giacometti, or his memoir A Giacometti Portrait, for the man behind the figures.
Sources
- Type
- Book
- Author / Maker
- Peter Selz (intro)
- Publisher
- The Museum of Modern Art (distributed by Doubleday)
- Place of publication
- New York
- Year
- 1965
- ISBN
- None
- Shelf
- Art
- Location
- Maine
Added from photo pass