Giacometti: A Biography - Softcover

Lord, James

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0374525250 ISBN 13: 9780374525255

Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1997

Synopsis

The work of one of the towering creative spirits of the century, Alberto Giacometti's visionary sculptures and paintings from a testament to the artist's intriguing life story. From modest beginnings in a Swiss village, Giacometti went on to flourish in the picturesque milieu of prewar Paris and then to achieve international acclaim in the fifties and sixties. Picasso, Balthus, Samuel Beckett, Stravinsky and Sartre have parts in his story, along with flamboyant art dealers, whores, shady drifters, unscrupulous collectors, poets and thieves. Women were a complex yet important element of his life--particularly his wife, Annette, and his last mistress and model, Caroline--as was the intimate relationship he shared with his brother Diego, who was both Alberto's confidant and collaborator.

James Lord was personally acquainted with Giacometti and his entourage, and combines firsthand experience with a unique knowledge gathered during many years of observation and research. In this exceptional biography Lord unfolds the personal history of a man who managed to achieve a heroic destiny by remaining utterly true to himself and to his calling.

Giacometti: A Biography was nominated for the National Book Critics Circle Award. James Lord has subsequently published three volumes of memoirs. In recognition of his contribution to French culture he has been made an officer of the Legion of Honour.

About this title

Review:

James Lord met Swiss-born sculptor Alberto Giacometti (1901-66) in 1952, when he had moved beyond the mysterious surrealist works that first won him fame (The Palace at 4 A.M.) to the spookily attenuated figures that made him a preeminent profiler of existential unease. Lord astutely chronicles this transformation, and the evaluation of Giacometti's formidable personality is notable for its sensitive delineation of his ambivalent feelings toward women. Without scanting the sculptor's tragic view of life, the author also inspires exhilaration with his portrait of a man who was always true to his art.

About the Author:

James Lord first went to France at age twenty-one as a member of the Military Intelligence Service during World War II. Since then he has spent the major part of his life in Paris, where he has been acquainted with many of the most prominent members of modern European art. In recognition of his contribution to French culture he has been made an officer of the Legion of Honour.

About this edition

• Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
• Publication date: 1997
• ISBN 10: 0374525250
• ISBN 13: 9780374525255
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 576