Alberto Giacometti
Pared the human figure down until there was almost nothing left, and kept going.
Alberto Giacometti was born in the Swiss Val Bregaglia in 1901, son of the painter Giovanni, and came to Paris in 1922. He made Surrealist objects through the early 1930s — The Palace at 4 a.m., Suspended Ball — and was expelled from the movement in 1935 for returning to work from a model. The war years in Geneva produced figures so small they fitted in matchboxes; afterwards, in the Rue Hippolyte-Maindron studio he occupied for forty years, they became the attenuated standing women and walking men that are the best-known sculptures of the century. He died in 1966.
This is a market defined by its authentication apparatus. The Fondation Giacometti in Paris maintains the Alberto Giacometti Database and the catalogue raisonne, and its opinion is decisive; the field has been troubled by one of the largest forgery operations ever prosecuted, involving hundreds of fake bronzes, and unregistered casts should be treated with great caution. Cast number, foundry, lifetime versus posthumous casting and patina all bear directly on value. The paintings and the dense grey drawings are a significant part of the output and are far less often faked.
If you own a work by Alberto Giacometti
Send photographs and whatever paperwork came with it. The first question is what the work actually is — edition or unique, when, and in what condition — because everything else follows from the answer. A valuation costs nothing and commits you to nothing.
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