Giacometti - Landscape with houses, Stampa

Born in Stampa, in the Val Bregaglia in Switzerland, Alberto Giacometti (1901-1966) arrived in Paris in 1922, where he discovered Cubism, African art and Greek statuary. It was between 1946-1947 that Giacometti's style, characterized by tall, slender figures, was established and in 1951 his first post-war exhibition took place in Paris, at the Galerie Maeght.
Paintings and drawings are an important part of the artist's work. The best known are the drawings from the family studio in Stampa, including portraits of his brother Diego and his wife Annette. The studio in Stampa was special because it was both an artistic and family setting, which the father, a painter himself, and the son shared for years. "If I see in gray, and in this gray the multiplicity of all the colors that I experience and that I would like to reproduce, why use another color?" the artist said.

Landscape is one of the recurring subjects in Giacometti's painting, approached very early in his youth. After many mountain landscapes, the gardens of Stampa, his hometown, are one of the themes most often treated in the artist's mature paintings.

© Giacometti Foundation