Brothers by design: Alberto and Diego Giacometti

‘What are Alberto’s sculptures, those spindly skeletal blobs of bronze?’ declared Diego Giacometti (1902-1985) in a late-night, drunken rant to Alberto’s biographer James Lord. ‘They are less than nothing!’ It was a rare outburst from this devoted younger brother, who had spent the previous 40 years of his life working as the technical assistant to his sibling, the prodigious Swiss artist.

The waters of fraternal rivalry run deep, and as a result there are conflicting accounts of the Giacometti brothers’ relationship. Yet all suggest Diego had a relatively good reason to be frustrated.

He was a talented sculptor in his own right; becoming celebrated in later years for his bronze furniture. Bizarrely, it was an early, self-inflicted injury to his right hand when operating a threshing machine that had forced him to develop a high degree of dexterity in his fingers. Apparently he had become so hypnotised by the blades, he couldn’t resist putting his hand inside. Understandably, his family were horrified, and the incident gives some indication as to why Alberto spent the rest of his life trying to protect his brother.

It was Alberto who supported Diego in Paris and encouraged him to train as a caster. It was an astute move because so skilled did Diego become, that the Surrealist artist Joan Miró once challenged him to cast a plum tart, which he did — perfectly.

This December, Designs by Alberto and Diego Giacometti at Christie’s in New York will reveal that both brothers were, in their own, singular ways, masters when it came to sculpture and the decorative arts. And that the relationship between them was far more than simply that of artist and assistant.

Born just a year apart, Alberto Giacometti (1901-1966) and his brother Diego were the sons of an Impressionist Swiss painter. Giovanni Giacometti (1868-1933) emerged as an artist in the late 1880s, but was blindsided by the modernist revolution, unable to embrace the radical experimentation of the day. 

Yet Giovanni remained a hugely influential figure to his sons. When Alberto, an eager and emotionally highly strung child, revealed a precocious artistic talent, his father became his tireless supporter. 

While Diego may not have had the frenetic energy, fevered imagination and philosophical rigour of his brother, he was unquestionably talented. And yet in later life he rejected any suggestion he might be an artist. ‘I am not a sculptor,’ he said, ‘simply my brother's artisan founder.’ Where Alberto was able to discuss existentialism with Sartre and combat the sinuous intellect of Samuel Beckett, Diego was an altogether more reticent individual. He would become uncomfortable when the conversation turned metaphysical, and preferred climbing mountains and the company of itinerant drinkers in the all-night tabac.

It was Diego’s penchant for the seedier elements of society that caused Alberto to employ him in his studio. According to Lord, Alberto wanted to save Diego from ‘an impending lifetime of slightly disreputable nonentity’. Perhaps Alberto recognised that Diego had been overshadowed by his precocious talent. Also, Alberto was not entirely impervious to the demi-monde himself, and towards the end of his life, he too preferred the peripatetic company of alcoholics to that of collectors.

The brothers also collaborated on a profitable sideline making household objects for the designer Jean-Michel Frank, which gave the elder Giacometti financial freedom to pursue his more radical artistic agenda. 

Diego’s explorations into furniture design really began in earnest after the Second World War. Alberto was famous by this time, creating works such as the primordial Femme assise (1949-50), below, which established him as a visionary modernist, and it was perhaps this ennobled status that gave Diego the freedom to escape his brother’s shadow.

Diego began making bronze furniture and quickly established himself a loyal clientele. Visitors to the studio in Montparnasse soon  began asking for the other Giacometti. One of his most enthusiastic patrons was the fashion designer Hubert de Givenchy; a Grand table consol aux cerfs  (circa 1968) made for the couturier’s country house was sold in 2017 for €2,650,500.

An identifiable aspect of Diego’s work is his interest in nature. A country boy at heart, his designs reflected the southerly Alpine valleys of the brothers’ childhood, and can be seen in tables that feature perching owls, or stools that echo the twisted branches of a tree.

The brothers loved animals. Alberto once said, ‘In a burning building I would save a cat before a Rembrandt.’ Indeed, Diego’s feline companions were given the run of the studio on rue Hippolyte Maindron.

They, in turn, inspired Alberto’s sculpture, Le Chat  (below), which encapsulates, with humorous affection, the ever-present cats that wandered between the paintbrushes and plaster dust. Diego’s bronze animals are also highly prized; his dove, Tourterelle  (1975), from The Collection of Hubert de Givency, was sold at Christie’s in 2017 for €194,500 — almost 10 times its low estimate of €20,000.

But perhaps the key to understanding the brother’s symbiotic relationship fully is the knowledge that from the age of 13, the younger sibling sat regularly for his brother. Alberto spent a lifetime trying to capture Diego, as the drawing Tête (de Diego), below, testifies, yet he admitted towards the end that he had never truly succeeded.

Alberto may have been Diego’s mentor, and his tireless supporter, yet Diego, in all his taciturn, belligerent devotion, was Alberto’s muse, the stoic everyman that the erratic and destructive artist could never be.