Walking Quickly under the Rain

1940s

The war: refuge in Switzerland

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

1946

Meets Annette Arm

In Switzerland in 1946 Giacometti met Annette Arm, a secretary for the Red Cross; they married on 19 July 1949.

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.

1951

Francis Ponge writes about him in Cahiers d’Art

The writer Francis Ponge wrote an article on Giacometti, published in the Paris journal Cahiers d’Art, that vividly captured the existential side of his work. In the post-war years many, including Sartre and Genet, hailed Giacometti as an outstanding existentialist artist.