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Alberto Giacometti: Eine Biographie
James Lord met Swiss-born sculptor Alberto Giacometti (1901-66) in 1952, when he had moved beyond the mysterious surrealist works that first won him fame (The Palace at 4 A.M.) to the spookily attenuated figures that made him a preeminent profiler of existential unease. Lord astutely chronicles this transformation, and the evaluation of Giacometti's formidable personality is notable for its sensitive delineation of his ambivalent feelings toward women. Without scanting the sculptor's tragic view of life, the author also inspires exhilaration with his portrait of a man who was always true to his art.
- GenresArtBiographyNonfiction
464 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 1985
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About the author
James Lord
15 books8 followersLibrarian Note: There is more than one author in the Goodreads database with this name.
James Lord was an American writer. He was the author of several books, including critically acclaimed biographies of the artists Alberto Giacometti and Pablo Picasso (with whom he became acquainted in Paris during his Army service in the Second World War).
James Lord was an American writer. He was the author of several books, including critically acclaimed biographies of the artists Alberto Giacometti and Pablo Picasso (with whom he became acquainted in Paris during his Army service in the Second World War).
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Displaying 1 - 13 of 13 reviews
May 10, 2013
I consider three factors when appraising a book: the story, how it is told, and how it is written. Deficiencies in one factor can be nullified by excellence in the other factors. Giacometti: A Biography is an excellent story that is told marginally well and written poorly. I first discovered his work at an exhibit of his works at the MoMA in 2001 where I was so impressed by his slender figures of rough bronze, particularly Walking Man and City Square. The National Gallery has a few important works through which I discovered for myself his Surrealist period, specifically No More Play (no longer on display) and Hands Holding the Void. Fascinated by these works I wanted to read about the man who created them.
Curiously, there is a dearth of work dedicated to Giacometti. Lord's biography seemed the most prevalent and I happened upon it in a second-hand bookstore recently. Lord, billed as a writer on the jacket, knew Giacometti and sat for at least one portrait. Lord writes as a disinterested scholar in spite of this, examining Giacometti by his positive and negative characteristics while surely championing Giacometti's unrivaled excellence. Lord is at his best when writing about the works of art rather than Giacometti the man; he is a better critic than biographer. Unfortunately, this book contains too little critique for my taste and Lord's talents.
The writing is often painful with strained syntax (verbs are occasionally optional) and an all too liberal smattering of exclamation marks. More than that, Lord engages entirely too often in pop-psych analysis of the subject. In some cases these tortured passages feel interminable and offer little enlightenment into Giacometti or his art. Principally because it reads like psychological analysis proffered by an undergraduate in the midst of failing Psych 101. The writer and editor would have done well to pare these distractions to mere sentences.
However, I learned a great deal about Giacometti and his art. That being my goal in reading this book, I was well served. Occasionally brilliant, more often tedious, and otherwise fine throughout, this book is still enormously informative. And for this reason I liked this book.
Curiously, there is a dearth of work dedicated to Giacometti. Lord's biography seemed the most prevalent and I happened upon it in a second-hand bookstore recently. Lord, billed as a writer on the jacket, knew Giacometti and sat for at least one portrait. Lord writes as a disinterested scholar in spite of this, examining Giacometti by his positive and negative characteristics while surely championing Giacometti's unrivaled excellence. Lord is at his best when writing about the works of art rather than Giacometti the man; he is a better critic than biographer. Unfortunately, this book contains too little critique for my taste and Lord's talents.
The writing is often painful with strained syntax (verbs are occasionally optional) and an all too liberal smattering of exclamation marks. More than that, Lord engages entirely too often in pop-psych analysis of the subject. In some cases these tortured passages feel interminable and offer little enlightenment into Giacometti or his art. Principally because it reads like psychological analysis proffered by an undergraduate in the midst of failing Psych 101. The writer and editor would have done well to pare these distractions to mere sentences.
However, I learned a great deal about Giacometti and his art. That being my goal in reading this book, I was well served. Occasionally brilliant, more often tedious, and otherwise fine throughout, this book is still enormously informative. And for this reason I liked this book.
January 31, 2015
This was a difficult book to read and took me a long time to dig through. The author, James Lord, loves Giacometti almost as much as he loves the sound of his own voice. This gets a little tiring. There are turns of phrase so convoluted and stilted that it can be difficult to figure out what the author is trying to say. I suspect Lord thinks he's being poetic. Quite the opposite, he's being vague and pretentious. This tone creeps in particularly when the author is trying to praise Giacometti's art.
Then there's one of the classic problems of autobiography -- Lord loves Giacometti so much, he forgives him all his bad behaviour. Giacometti marries a woman mostly because she threatens to kill herself. Much later, in his 60s, Giacometti starts a relationship with a 21 year old prostitute. As he gets rich and famous, he refuses to give money to his wife, but showers his whore (and model) with everything she could desire, and then some. Why? It's not really clear. Giacometti lives a simple, squalid life and seems to expect his wife to do the same.
While I don't expect Lord to moralize on this behaviour, he seems to take this all in stride. Of course Giacometti behaved this way. He was, after all, an artistic genius.
Thing is, you can be an artistic genius without being a complete bastard about it. And what does mistreating your wife have to do with making art? Is his vision so singular that he has to crap on everyone around him?
It's one thing to hear that Giacometti screamed in his wife's face, "It's for my art! It's for my art!" It's another to have Lord standing behind him, nodding his head in agreement. It's creepy and cult-like.
Despite all the flaws I've listed above, Lord does provide a lot of fascinating stories about Giacometti's life. I genuinely feel like I know a lot more. Mind you, I had to read 520 pages to get that information, and it could easily have been a lot shorter.
There's another odd aspect to the book that bothers me. On the back cover is a picture of James Lord, with Giacometti. They are standing in the Museum of Modern Art in New York, in front of a portrait Giacometti painted of Lord. At no point in his book does Lord mention meeting Giacometti. He says nothing about posing for him. That seems beyond weird. Why leave out those details, those first hand experiences?
Perhaps Lord was trying to maintain some objective distance from his subject. He fails in doing so completely. And maybe that's what makes the tone of the book so weird: James Lord is writing about an artist he has met, posed for, knows intimately. He forgives the artist all his sins. Now, he sits down to write a book, and pretends to be objectively writing from a distance. The fawning love oozes out on every page, even as Lord attempts to conceal it.
This book is only for Giacometti fans with strong stomachs for convoluted prose.
Then there's one of the classic problems of autobiography -- Lord loves Giacometti so much, he forgives him all his bad behaviour. Giacometti marries a woman mostly because she threatens to kill herself. Much later, in his 60s, Giacometti starts a relationship with a 21 year old prostitute. As he gets rich and famous, he refuses to give money to his wife, but showers his whore (and model) with everything she could desire, and then some. Why? It's not really clear. Giacometti lives a simple, squalid life and seems to expect his wife to do the same.
While I don't expect Lord to moralize on this behaviour, he seems to take this all in stride. Of course Giacometti behaved this way. He was, after all, an artistic genius.
Thing is, you can be an artistic genius without being a complete bastard about it. And what does mistreating your wife have to do with making art? Is his vision so singular that he has to crap on everyone around him?
It's one thing to hear that Giacometti screamed in his wife's face, "It's for my art! It's for my art!" It's another to have Lord standing behind him, nodding his head in agreement. It's creepy and cult-like.
Despite all the flaws I've listed above, Lord does provide a lot of fascinating stories about Giacometti's life. I genuinely feel like I know a lot more. Mind you, I had to read 520 pages to get that information, and it could easily have been a lot shorter.
There's another odd aspect to the book that bothers me. On the back cover is a picture of James Lord, with Giacometti. They are standing in the Museum of Modern Art in New York, in front of a portrait Giacometti painted of Lord. At no point in his book does Lord mention meeting Giacometti. He says nothing about posing for him. That seems beyond weird. Why leave out those details, those first hand experiences?
Perhaps Lord was trying to maintain some objective distance from his subject. He fails in doing so completely. And maybe that's what makes the tone of the book so weird: James Lord is writing about an artist he has met, posed for, knows intimately. He forgives the artist all his sins. Now, he sits down to write a book, and pretends to be objectively writing from a distance. The fawning love oozes out on every page, even as Lord attempts to conceal it.
This book is only for Giacometti fans with strong stomachs for convoluted prose.
September 25, 2012
I just could not get in to James Lords style of writing ... It simply was boring!
June 25, 2023
I liked the book , but sometimes i was wondering how the author could have gotten so much information about what was going on in giacomettis head at any time
August 1, 2008
Stunning portrait of the artist. Paean to the "unfinished" and the difficulty of ever completing a piece of art to satisfaction. Especially moving to reconsider as I struggle with letting go of the page proofs for my forthcoming memoir Love Junkie -- my last chance to alter the text. Profound and stirring biography that spans the inspired, perverse, focused and restless life of one of the great artists of all time imo.
September 13, 2019
This book is good enough. It tells his life story, and I learned a good bit on that front. But, it really leans on some male fantasies of “being an artist” and how the egocentric dickish attitude of a genius is okay. I don’t know, it made me like Giacometti less and think James Lord’s perspective is a little clouded by cliche ideas of the capital A artist.
May 8, 2009
A full-length, elegantly written, and entertaining bio that serves as sort of a companion volume to James Lord's much shorter and classic A Giacometti Portrait, about Lord's sitting for his portrait by Giacometti.
August 22, 2020
"Giacometti is not working for his contemporaries, nor for the future generations: he is creating statues to at last delight the dead". - Jean Genet. The Studio of Alberto Giacometti
A fascinating look at an odd but very talented man, as well as into the life of an artist in Paris during the 1930's, 40's, 50's and 60s.
Giacometti these days would have been diagnosed with severe OCD and likely put on some sort of medication, which probably would have done wonders in terms of rendering his life more "normal", but would have deprived us of his art. Actually, he probably would have refused the medication regardless.
The author seems very knowledgable (almost suspiciously so) of the comings, goings, inner thoughts and private actions not only of Alberto, but those close to him. There are some odd lacunas, such as stating that Caroline's real last name "does not matter", but regardless, I doubt anyone else could have give us as much information about this man and his family. Oddly missing was any reference to the author himself, despite having had a portrait made of himself (and a photo of him and the artist on the back cover). I can't help but wonder how he fits into Alberto's story.
Also missing was further mention of Hans Bechtler, aside from being a Swiss who decided not to buy Giacometti's work. I live in Charlotte, where the Bechtler museum is chock full of Giacometti works, so I assume he changed his mind at some point and brought the works to North Carolina for some reason.
In fact, I would have appreciated quite a bit more follow-up information. What happened to Annette? To Caroline? To the brother(s)? Did they have issues due to his dying intestate?
A fascinating look at an odd but very talented man, as well as into the life of an artist in Paris during the 1930's, 40's, 50's and 60s.
Giacometti these days would have been diagnosed with severe OCD and likely put on some sort of medication, which probably would have done wonders in terms of rendering his life more "normal", but would have deprived us of his art. Actually, he probably would have refused the medication regardless.
The author seems very knowledgable (almost suspiciously so) of the comings, goings, inner thoughts and private actions not only of Alberto, but those close to him. There are some odd lacunas, such as stating that Caroline's real last name "does not matter", but regardless, I doubt anyone else could have give us as much information about this man and his family. Oddly missing was any reference to the author himself, despite having had a portrait made of himself (and a photo of him and the artist on the back cover). I can't help but wonder how he fits into Alberto's story.
Also missing was further mention of Hans Bechtler, aside from being a Swiss who decided not to buy Giacometti's work. I live in Charlotte, where the Bechtler museum is chock full of Giacometti works, so I assume he changed his mind at some point and brought the works to North Carolina for some reason.
In fact, I would have appreciated quite a bit more follow-up information. What happened to Annette? To Caroline? To the brother(s)? Did they have issues due to his dying intestate?
August 31, 2023
When looking for biographies of Alberto Giacometti, I found two were recommended: this one and a more recent one. I decided to read them both starting with this one. As other reviews have mentioned, it is very thorough but often gets self-indulgent and wordy, and attempts to psychoanalyze Giacometti (and everyone else in the book).
So, much of this was a bit of a slog, but I have to admit that the author's style worked very well for the final chapter describing Giacometti's final illness, hospitalization, death, and funeral.
So, worth the read, but I'm kinda glad I'm done. 😀
So, much of this was a bit of a slog, but I have to admit that the author's style worked very well for the final chapter describing Giacometti's final illness, hospitalization, death, and funeral.
So, worth the read, but I'm kinda glad I'm done. 😀
July 29, 2023
Wonderful
December 21, 2025
It’s a fantastic biography only let down by the lack of illustrations of the artworks so that you can understand what’s being discussed.
December 29, 2012
Terrific account of one artist's life, flaws and all. Occasionally it's slow going (though being sick as I read it probably didn't help), but the cumulative effect is ultimately very moving.
April 2, 2014
I've read and reread this many times. I love this book.
Displaying 1 - 13 of 13 reviews