The MFAH Will Highlight the Alberto Giacometti's Major Achievements of the Postwar Years

One of the most important artists of the 20th century, Alberto Giacometti (1901-1966), reasserted the value of figure and figural representation at times when the dominant style in art was abstraction. His work, famous for sinewy silhouettes and elongated forms, was associated with existentialism, a dominant philosophical trend in Europe post-World War II. 

Revisiting his oeuvre, the Museum of Fine Arts in Houston (MFAH) is staging a retrospective of his art, featuring 60 sculptures highlighting the artist's major achievements of the post-war years (1945-1966).  

The Ultimate Figure

"Alberto Giacometti was a defining artist of modernism and of the 20th century," said Gary Tinterow, Director and Margaret Alkek Williams Chair, the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston.

"Toward the Ultimate Figure brilliantly explores Giacometti's creative process to illuminate how he came to produce his iconic figures."

The figures are emaciated, with extended limbs and narrow faces, as if stretched between life's extremes, highlighting the alienation, uncertainty, and fear of the post-war years. With the Cold War era in full swing, Giacometti explored the fragile presence and the human being at its centre, flattened and compressed, expressive of a deep crisis that faced art and humanity. 

Thematic Sections 

The exhibition is presented in 12 thematic sections that focus on the development of Giacometti's signature style. It starts with his life in Paris and his early works. Born in Switzerland, Giacometti moved to Paris in 1922, to study with Antoine Bourdelle at the Académie de la Grande Chaumière. He also established a studio feet in a small house in the Montparnasse district of Paris, which he kept all his life. 

His early works are renderings of heads, but he soon moved from working with models to depictions inspired by his memory, imagination, and dreams. In the late 1940s, Giacometti advanced the concept of elongated figures stripped of any narrative that would become his hallmark. 

While focused on sculpture, Giacometti also sketched and painted landscapes, especially during the 1950s. His sculptures The Forest and The Glade show his interest in nature, as the multiple tall figures in these sculptures resemble trees or wild plants.   

Giacometti's long search for the ultimate figure culminated in his large standing woman and walking man sculptures of the post-war period. These two distinct types would become dominant in his practice and would — subjected to a process of elongation — signal a radical rejection of the weight and permanence by the artist. 

A special section of the exhibition is dedicated to Giacometti as seen by photographers and in film. It includes memorable portraits of Giacometti by, among others, Robert Doisneau, Gordon Parks, and Arnold Newman,  and excerpts from Swiss photographer Ernst Scheidegger's documentary film about Giacometti. 

Alberto Giacometti at MFAH

The exhibition Alberto Giacometti: Toward the Ultimate Figure will be on view at MFAH in Houston until February 12th, 2023. A fully illustrated catalogue featuring more than 100 sculptures, paintings, drawings, and prints will accompany the exhibition. It offers a comprehensive survey of the artist's work from the early years to his later masterpieces. 

Featured image: Gordon Parks - Alberto Giacometti in His Studio,  c. 1951, silver print on paper, Archives,  Fondation Giacometti. Courtesy of and © The  Gordon Parks Foundation