The makings of an art world Titan: new London show gives us another side of Giacometti

Date
19 October 2015

When an artist’s style is as familiar as that of Swiss sculptor Alberto Giacometti, it can be easy to become almost blind to it. Those long, tall figures are firmly engrained on my mind – and in my ears, thanks to the thick Scottish accent of an A-Level art teacher, which seemed most pronounced when saying “Giacometti.” But when you see a retrospective like that currently showing at London’s National Portrait Gallery in London, it suddenly makes sense why the man behind the stick-like figures is such a prominent figure himself.

Entitled Pure Presence, the exhibition traces Giacometti’s career from brightly coloured beginnings to the austere final works. While his palette darkened over the years, what’s striking about the show is the artist’s dogged consistency: formally, things change, but his search remains the same – to capture something in a figure that he feels from having them sit. It’s this idea of “presence”, as the title suggests, that’s so engaging and haunting, and brings a solemn life to the weary eye-holes of his creations. Another consistency is created from his seemingly small cast of subjects: we see his reluctant mother, his more willing brother, the women he loved (his wife Annette, a woman named Isabel, and an intriguing delinquent character named Caroline).

Even from this 60 piece-strong display, and the exhaustive texts accompanying each piece, the artist still seems a mystery. Like his works, he’s undeniably impressive and piercingly intense, yet ultimately mysterious. His portrait works on show here perhaps reveal a little more of what this humanity-obsessed individual was looking for, and it’s a joy to discover his work all over again.

Giacometti: Pure Presence is on show at the National Portrait Gallery, London until 10 January 2016,

Above
Left

Giacometti: Head of Isobel, 1936

Right

Giacometti: Head of Isobel, 1938

Above

Giacometti: Head of Isobel, 1938

Above

Giacometti: Otilla, 1934

Above
Left

Giacometti: Self Portrait, 1923

Right

Giacometti: Jean Genet, 1954-5

Above

Giacometti: Jean Genet, 1954-5

Above

Giacometti: Caroline, 1961

Above

Giacometti: Diego in a Sweater, 1953

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Emily Gosling

Emily joined It’s Nice That as Online Editor in the summer of 2014 after four years at Design Week. She is particularly interested in graphic design, branding and music. After working It's Nice That as both Online Editor and Deputy Editor, Emily left the company in 2016.

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