Definition:

The sculptor and painter Alberto Giacometti was born in the village of Borgonovo near Stampa in Switzerland and died in Chur in Switzerland on 11 January 1966.

He is said to have uttered these words close to his death: "The more you fail, the more you succeed. It is only when everything is lost and - instead of giving up - you go on, that you experience the momentary prospect of some slight progress.

Suddenly you have the feeling - be it an illusion or not - that something new has opened up." A telling quote from an artist who destroyed much of his own work.

Alberto Giacometti's father was a Post-Impressionist painter called Giovanni Giacometti. He studied at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts in Geneva from 1919-20, in Italy from 1920-1, and in Paris from 1922. Giacometti's first one-man exhibition was in 1927, at the Galerie Aktuaryus in Zurich. Between 1930 and 1935 Giacometti worked as a Surrealist; after that he went back to working from the model. He spent 1941 to 1945 (World War 2) in Geneva.

Giacometti started making what we now regard as his characteristic tall and thin, sticklike style of sculptures in 1947.

See Also:

• Chronology of Giacometti's life
• Giacometti Works in the Tate
• Giacometti Work in Moma