Giacometti

Beautiful retrospective exhibition at Tate Modern of sculpture and paintings by Giacometti.

The works were beautifully displayed and given space to breathe and react to each other. From the first room which was filled with head studies from realistic ones to more abstract ones. I was entranced. Despite the different styles you can recognise where the heads are the same person.

I was interested to see that he had worked in the decorative arts in the 1930s and I loved a cabinet of these as I now really want one of his lamp stands with a small female head on it. 

The work was often shown alongside the magazines and exhibition catalogues in which it had featured giving a good sense of how an artistic career built up and the show was very good at blending his work and his life. I was interesting in the room on the war years when he was in exile in Switzerland when his work got very small. I had a sense of him making work he could just pick up and run with if the need arose.

It was lovely to see eight of the surviving plaster Women of Venice figures, made for the Venice Biennale of 1956, shown together here for the first time in 60 years. Another stunning room just showed five large works from the 1920s and 30s.

Although it’s the sculpture which is the star of the show it is fun that it is shown alongside Giacometti’s paintings which are a bit Bacon like. I liked a lovely set of lithographs of Paris but found it annoying that there were shown around the viewing area for a video so it was hard to move around them and get a good look.

Closes on 10 September 2017

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