Alberto Giacometti

Alberto Giacometti was a Swiss sculptor and painter who worked in Paris from the 1920s. After a Surrealist phase he developed, from the late 1940s, the elongated, eroded standing and walking figures that became emblems of post-war existentialism, alongside intense portraits of his brother Diego and wife Annette. His bronzes were cast in limited editions, so several casts of a model can appear on the market. Giacometti holds the auction record for any sculpture: L'homme au doigt (1947) sold for 141.3 million dollars at Christie's New York in May 2015. Demand is concentrated on major lifetime casts; in May 2025 a Grande tête mince estimated at over 70 million dollars failed to sell at Sotheby's, a sign of selectivity at the top.