Dog

1940s

The war: refuge in Switzerland

He spent the years of the Second World War in Switzerland, living in Geneva.

1949

Married: Annette Giacometti

c. 1949

After the wedding the figures grow, yet grow thinner

After his marriage his tiny sculptures became larger, but the larger they grew, the thinner they became; for the rest of his life Annette was his main female model. His paintings changed in parallel: continually reworked, the figures appear isolated and severely attenuated.

c. 1957

Painting moves alongside sculpture

Painting makes up only a small part of his oeuvre, but after 1957 his figurative paintings were as present as his sculptures; the almost monochrome canvases of his late work do not refer to any other styles of modernity.

1958

Commission for the Chase Manhattan Bank in New York

In 1958 he was asked to create a monumental sculpture for the Chase Manhattan Bank building then going up. He had long harboured an ambition to make work for a public square, but according to his biographer James Lord he had never set foot in New York or laid eyes on an actual skyscraper.

11 July 1959 – 11 October 1959

Exhibition: Documenta II