Enhanced descriptions from Syndetics:

Alberto Giacometti was one of the greatest sculptors and painters of the 20th century. This book explores the man and his work from the point of view of the author as sitter, friend, critic and exhibition curator.

Reviews provided by Syndetics

Library Journal Review

Arguably the greatest sculptor of the century, Alberto Giacometti (1901-66) was an intensely driven and obsessive artist. Evolving from earlier surrealist abstractions, his work gradually became restricted to the wispy, attenuated standing or walking figures for which he is best known. English critic Sylvester (The Banality of Fact: Interviews with Sir Francis Bacon, Thames & Hudson, 1987) has spent much of the last 50 years talking to the Swiss sculptor and looking at his work, and he now has adapted many of his writings to create this delightfully lyrical meditation on Giacometti's art. In this sparsely illustrated, surprisingly compact volume, he describes Giacometti's fierce aesthetic convictions more attentively and thoughtfully than most writers. An excellent companion to James Lord's definitive Giacometti: A Biography (LJ 9/15/85), though libraries looking for something with more pictorial content should consider the handsome Alberto Giacometti: Sculpture, Paintings, Drawings (LJ 7/94).‘Douglas F. Smith, Oakland P.L., Cal. (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

Publishers Weekly Review

Sylvester (René Magritte) befriended Alberto Giacometti in Paris in 1948, visited him frequently in his studio and curated a retrospective of the Swiss sculptor's works in London in 1965, a year before Giacometti died. In this searching, lyrical appreciation, Giacometti's fragile, long, slender but never ethereal human figures, forever "trembling on the brink of movement," are seen as emblems of our transitory existence, evoking a sense of loss and impermanence. Sylvester analyzes the "reciprocal relationship" between a Giacometti sculpture and the spectator, a confrontation that reveals the solitude of each. By underscoring affinities and parallels between Giacometti's works and those of Cézanne, Miro, Lipchitz, Magritte, de Chirico and Francis Bacon, Sylvester places him firmly among modern artists who "render visible the process of translating reality into art." Featuring photos of Giacometti's sculptures and paintings, this perceptive study includes a biographical sketch as well as two interviews from 1964. (Mar.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved

Booklist Review

For more than 40 years Sylvester has written about Swiss painter and sculptor Alberto Giacometti (1906^-66), providing an incisive, ongoing commentary that touched on a myriad of issues concerning the artist's remarkable work. Gathered here are an interview and articles and essays spanning Giacometti's career, all remarking on his life. The opportunity to sit for Giacometti gave Sylvester the chance to converse with the artist, which allowed the critic to observe and discuss firsthand the events, ideas, and impressions that ignited Giacometti's creativity. A previous intimate acquaintance resulted in Interviews with Francis Bacon, Sylvester's seminal book on the English painter. Now another intimate acquaintance offers a definitive look at the evolution of Giacometti's sculpture and painting. Comprehensive in scope yet remarkably cogent, this book is a complex, vital document of one of the most important artists of the modern era. --Alice Joyce

Kirkus Book Review

This study is so dominated by the personality of its author that it offers only a pretentious peak at the artist himself. Art critic Sylvester (René Magritte, not reviewed, etc.) draws on his personal association with the Swiss painter and sculptor Alberto Giacometti (190166) in this compilation of disparate but often overlapping essays on the artist and his work. Neither biography nor art critical study, this book is more of an ``appreciation of the artist,'' a genre that today seems tired and dated. The old-fashioned feel extends not only to Sylvester's hushed and reverent writing but to his approach to his subject matter. Exploring issues of form and process (to the exclusion of just about everything else) in Giacometti's art, Sylvester takes on the role of the privileged intercessor. His relationship with the artist takes on an air of exclusivity as he translates for us Giacometti's intentions and musings. Self-consciously poetic and unchronological (covering a 40-year time period), these essays never really anchor Giacometti's career historically and only vaguely touch upon his personal history and brief association with the surrealist movement. Sylvester goes into great detail in his discussions of Giacometti's work, but cannot resist frequent interjections of his own presence: ``I feel within my muscles the stance of the figure, feel I am adopting the same stance, feel this so strongly that sometimes I find myself doing so in reality- -holding myself more taut and upright, squaring my shoulders, placing my hands straight down my sides.'' Giacometti as a personality begins to come alive in a chapter that recounts Sylvester's experience of sitting for a portrait. Unfortunately, this recollection pales in comparison to James Lord's far more engaging account of posing for Giacometti. Alas, the strongest suit in this otherwise outmoded study is its conclusion: an interview with Giacometti that finally allows the artist to speak for himself.

Author notes provided by Syndetics

David Sylvester is an internationally renowned art critic who in 1993 became the first art critic to receive a Golden Lion at the Venice Biennale.

(Bowker Author Biography)