Customer Reviews

Alberto Giacometti: Sculpture, Painting, Drawings (Art Flexi Series)

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I've always been a fan of Giacomettis but he's one of those artists there's not much written about. Perhaps there just isn't any more information, and if that's the case, I might be judging this book too harshly.

Schneider starts off by telling us about Albertos childhood and early life. Alberto is one of the few successful artists who actually had a happy childhood. His father, Giovanni Giacometti, introduced him to art at a very early age, being a painter himself, and in school Alberto impressed fellow pupils as well as his teachers with his artistic skills. He studied together with Bror Hjorth in Paris, where he would later settle down. And Angels then keeps telling us, in a very factual way, about Giacomettis life until the day he passed away.

The book is full of beautiful black and white photographs, on Alberto as well as on his work, studio and family and often they cover the entire pages. And they take up around two thirds of the book. I find that the text get to suffer from this, not only in quantity but also in quality.

I'd imagine it'd be great if you're just getting to know about Giacometti and want to see his artwork, but if you, like me, want to get deeper, to get to know about the man and the time in which he lived, you'll be out of luck.

It's still a good book. I just think that with a little more heart, it could've been great.

First off, I would say that for 12.00, this book is an incredible buy, and I would recommend it to anyone looking for a quick primer on the artist. The author writes in a very dry, "just the facts", style that neither adds or subtracts from the information given. There is little editorializing in the pages describing Giacometti's life; that is saved for a series of essays later in the book. The obvious flaw with this book is that most of the plates are in black and white. But again, given it's reasonable price, the plates are adequate.

In my humble opinion, Giacometti, best known for his sculpture, could probably have had an equally great career as a painter. In self-criticism, he compared his portraits to those of Bacon, but in reality they are just as revealing and well executed.

This is a complete work that let you know the life and work of this extraordinary sculptor