Alberto Giacometti

Giacometti was a firm believer in the importance of disseminating high-quality examples of his work through original editions. He created his first prints alongside his father when he was still a schoolboy. At various points in his career he embraced most print techniques, producing wood engravings, etchings, aquatints and - from 1949 - lithographs. 

Lithography allowed a degree of flexibility vital to Giacometti's artistic practice. He would venture out from his studio with sheets of special transfer paper and a lithographic pencil, sketching the Parisian streets, café terraces, Metro, building sites and the lithographer's print shop, transferring the drawings to zinc printing plates back in his studio. His prints express the same tension and sense of textural accretion as his sculptures and should be viewed as an integral element of his output. 

In 1955 Giacometti was the subject of major retrospectives at the Arts Council Gallery, London, and the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York. He received the Sculpture Prize at the 1961 Carnegie International in Pittsburgh and the Grand Prize for Sculpture at the 1962 Venice Biennale. In 1965 exhibitions of his work were organized by the Tate Gallery, London, the Museum of Modern Art, New York, the Louisiana Museum, Humlebaek, Denmark, and the Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam. In the same year he was awarded the Grand Prix National des Arts by the French government. 

Giacometti's work is extremely desirable and we firmly recommend his prints to our clients on the basis of their unique aesthetic quality and consistently strong market performance.