Diego Giacometti valuation
Alberto's brother, who cast furniture in bronze and populated it with small animals.
Diego Giacometti was born at Borgonovo in Switzerland in 1902, a year after his brother Alberto, and spent decades as his assistant in the Paris studio — building armatures, making the plasters, patinating the bronzes.
What a work by Diego Giacometti is worth
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Bio
Diego Giacometti was born at Borgonovo in Switzerland in 1902, a year after his brother Alberto, and spent decades as his assistant in the Paris studio — building armatures, making the plasters, patinating the bronzes. He was also the model for many of the heads. From the 1930s he made furniture in his own right and after Alberto's death in 1966 it became his whole practice: tables, chairs, lamps, chandeliers and console tables cast in bronze, the frames slender and textured, with small owls, cats, foxes and frogs perched on them. The commission for the furniture of the Musee Picasso in Paris occupied his final years. He died in 1985.
The work sits between sculpture and furniture and is bought as both, which makes accurate description important. Pieces were made in small numbers and variants rather than in strict editions, and the same model exists with different tops, patinas and animals, so identifying the specific version is the task. Patina is central and is frequently damaged by cleaning or by glass tops rubbing the frame. Casts made after his death exist. The Musee Picasso commission and named Paris provenance are the strongest documentary anchors.
Stampa, the shared studio and the commissions
Diego grew up at Stampa in the Grisons, studied business in Basel and St Gallen, and at 25, on his mother's advice, joined Alberto in Paris. The brothers shared the studio at 46 rue Hippolyte-Maindron for the rest of their lives and worked for clients including the Maeght and Noailles families; their younger brother, Bruno, became an architect.
After 1966 he made furniture for decorators such as Georges Geffroy and Henri Samuel, and for the Fondation Maeght at Saint-Paul-de-Vence, the Chagall museum in Nice and the Musée Picasso in Paris. He died at the American Hospital of Paris in July 1985. Daniel Marchesseau's book on him was published in 1986 and reissued in 2007.
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