Giacometti (1987)

In 1960 photographer and designer Herbert Matter made his first visit to Alberto Giacometti’s Paris studio and began to create a body of photographs of the renowned artist’s work and milieu that both men hoped to see published in book form. Giacometti was astounded by the photographs and told Matter that they enabled him to see his own work in a new light, that they illuminated aspects of his sculptures that he himself had never recognized. In a letter to the photographer he described the photographs as, “each one: a creation in itself; one more beautiful than another.”

Making these photographs occupied Matter for the next five years; the design of the book and preparations for its publication continued until his death in 1984. Now, more than twenty years after he began, the results of Matter’s efforts finally are gathered in this volume.

Reproduced here are many of Giacometti’s finest works—from the monumental Standing Woman of 1948, to numerous busts of his brother Diego, to the powerful late busts of the 1960s—all sensitively interpreted through Matter’s lens.

Condition: some spotting to top edge of text-block.