Alberto Giacometti

“Three recent catalogues have been published by Kunsthaus Zürich/Scheidegger & Spiess, Tate and Gagosian on the subject of the art of Alberto Giacometti (1901-66). Giacometti worked in sculpture, painting, drawing and – to a lesser extent – printmaking. The Tate catalogue includes Giacometti’s sculpture and paintings; the Zürich catalogue focuses exclusively on Giacometti’s sculpture, principally original sculptures rather than the bronzes cast from them; the Gagosian catalogue gives us new photographs of classic sculptures by the artist.

The catalogue Giacometti was published for the retrospective exhibition at Tate Modern (10 May-10 September 2017). The selection is representative and many excellent pieces are included. There are early works: the plaster and stone portrait heads, post-Cubist plaster carvings and marble carvings influenced by Cycladic art.

Around 1928 Giacometti formulated his Surrealist style, which combined his sensibility for plastic form with a sense of drama. Using combinations of multiple materials, the artist created violent, unsettling and mysterious psycho-sexual dramas…”

Read the full review online on 3rd Dimension website here: https://3rd-dimensionpmsa.org.uk/reviews/2018-03-13-alberto-giacometti-exhibition-catalogues-reviewed

Edme Bouchardon Reappraised

“Edme Bouchardon (1698-1762) was a leading figure from the Generation of 1700 who was greatly admired by contemporaries and for some decades later, but his name gradually slipped from public recognition. Chardin is famed, while Bouchardon is obscure to even the most informed layperson. This neglect should be partly redressed by an exhibition catalogue, available in both an English and a French version, and a monograph on the artist’s drawings that have been published to mark the exhibition of Bouchardon held at the Louvre, Paris (closed December 2016) and at the Getty Center, Los Angeles (closes 2 April 2017).

1. Edme Bouchardon, Baron Philipp von Stosch, 1727,
marble 85×62×33cm., Eigentum des Kaiser Friedrich-
Museums-Vereins, Skulpturensammlung und Museum
für Byzantinische Kunst, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin
(photo: bpk, Berlin / Jörg P. Anders / Art Resource, NY)

“Edme Bouchardon trained in Paris at his father’s workshop and, upon winning the Prix de Rome, moved to Rome to take up residency at the Académie Française, remaining there from 1723 to 1732. He initially attracted interest due to his marble and terracotta portrait busts, which follow the Roman tradition yet manage to be lively and (apparently) good likenesses and became influential in France…”

Read the full review online at 3rd Dimension, 31 March 2017, website here: https://3rd-dimensionpmsa.org.uk/reviews/2017-03-31-edme-bouchardon-reappraised