© In Giacometti's Studio - jacket cover
Coinciding with the recent inauguration of the exhibition “In Giacometti´s Studio – An Intimate Portrait“ (from October 29 to December 18 2010 at Eykyn Maclean in New York), next 30th of November will be available the new book of the art historian Michael Peppiat: “In Giacometti´s Studio“.
Michael Peppiat, a leading authority on Alberto Giacometti and Francis Bacon, has also curated the exhibition at Eykyn Maclean, that includes a selection of a 100 sculptures, paintings and drawings, as well as photographs and documens loaned principally from the collection of Giacometti´s heirs.
Record for ‘L´Homme qui marche’
A few months ago, the masterpiece “L´homme qui marche” , from this great artist, was sold by 65.001.250 pounds, becoming the most expensive work of art ever to sell at auction until the date.
The book “In Giacometti´s Studio” by Michael Peppiat
In his new book, this art historian -author of the critically acclaimed ”Francis Bacon: Anatomy of an Enigma“- focuses on the creative chaos of the tiny, cluttered studio behind Montparnasse, where Giacometti, one of key figures in Surrealist and twentieth century art, spent nearly all the last four decades of his life (1926-66).
Photo Ernst Scheidegger © Neue Zürcher Zeitung, 2010,
Peppiat explores this scenery, that seemed to be -as he explains- both Giacometti´s most important artwork, including countless complete or unfinished works, and the archive of years of struggle. His death converted it in his greatest achievement, containing as it did the traces of a lifetime´s search for truth.
The Surrealist movement
At first, the artist work there as a member of the Surrealist movement and then he gradually made his mark on Paris´artistic, literary and intellectual worlds. After an enforced wartime exile in Geneva, he returned to his studio in Paris and he struggled to realise his pared-down vision of mankind.
Strewn with plaster, sculpting tools, canvases and paint brushes, the studio of Giacometti was an artistic and intellectual center during an era when Paris was the cultural capital of Europe and a magnet for many of the greatest artists and writers of the time. For some of them -André Breton, Pablo Picasso, Jean-Paul Sartre, Jean Genet, Antonin Artaud, Marlene Dietrich and Samuel Beckett- Giacometti created the set design of the Théatre de l´Odéon´s 1961 production of Beckett´s “Waiting for Godot“.
Giacometi´s exhibition and book
- In Giacometti´s Studio – An Intimate Portrait“ exhibition: from October 29 to December 18 2010 at Eykyn Maclean in New York (23 E 67 St, 2nd Floor, NewYork). Tuesday-Saturday,10am-5pm. Visit www.eykynmaclean.com
- “In Giacometti´s Studio” book, Michael Peppiat, Yale University Press.
1 comment
PS3* says:
Jan 5, 2011
Giacometi’s art work is like an open diary of his very intimate personal life, a time and experiences living in the proximity of death…..” Captured by the Nazis he survived a concentration forced labor camp”… it is amazing to see how much effort he makes to build up… distorted images of human beings… erased body sculptures… of people who have lost the memory of the everything they were.