Alberto Giacometti's entire graphic corpus goes on display for the first time: over 400 sheets on display

From March 8 to Sept. 13, 2020, the m.a.x. museum in Chiasso (Ticino canton, Switzerland) is hosting the exhibition Alberto Giacometti, which presents, for the first time, the entire graphic corpus of Alberto Giacometti (Borgonovo di Stampa, 1901 - Chur, 1966), displaying more than 400 sheets including woodcuts, engravings by burin, etchings, punteseches and artist’s books. The exhibition, curated by Jean Soldini and Nicoletta Ossanna Cavadini, brings together loans from major international institutions that preserve Alberto Giacometti’s works and from important private collectors. The creative environment of the artist and the man will also be restored by photographs taken by his friend Ernst Scheidegger who, since 1943, has documented Giacometti’s artistic activity and private life with images and films.

The aim of the exhibition is to document Giacometti’s extraordinary mastery of various graphic techniques, from woodcut to burin engraving, from etching to drypoint. Although he is best known as a sculptor and painter, the Ticino master was also a prolific engraver, and his works in this medium represent a further expression of his profound artistic pursuit. Giacometti, in fact, saw drawing (and its transposition onto the matrix) as the aesthetic and conceptual foundation on which to build his pictorial and plastic works. As the artist himself had occasion to say, “whatever it is, sculpture or painting, it is only the drawing that counts.”

The exhibition consists of four sections, and in each of them there will also be a painting, drawing or sculpture that is particularly significant for understanding the relationship between different means of expression. More information about the exhibition can be found on the website of the m.a.x. museum in Chiasso.

Image: Alberto Giacometti, André du Bouchet I (1955-1956; etching, 16.7 x 12.2 cm)

Alberto Giacometti's entire graphic corpus goes on display for the first time: over 400 sheets on display

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