Paris Post War: Art and Existentialism 1945-55

Today, many artists are working on a large scale, designing for the out-of-doors, planning fountains and gardens.

While other sculptors were feeling this need of expanding their working space, what were the interests of Alberto Giacometti, a man now in his forties? He had no wish to deal with the architect. Gardens, fountains, terraces were entirely too immense, did not even belong to the world of which he dreamed. An invitation to decorate a World's Fair building, as others were doing, would have seemed ridiculous. Rather than wishing to impose upon indifferent eyes great blocks of stone which, rightly placed, can hold their own against an entire landscape, Giacometti dreamed of the building

of an inner sanctuary, some palace of the mind not to

be measured by an ordinary rule.

From an article on Giacometti by Georges Limbour, Magazine of Art (Washington) November 1948

Paris Post War: Art and Existentialism 1945-55 at the Tate Gallery until 5 September.

See next Monday's Independent for reader offers.