GIACOMETTI AT THE BRITISH MUSEUM

In 1964 Giacometti came to London in preparation for the great Arts Council show of his work which was held in the following year. He was shown the sights by Robin Campbell who later wrote a charming  text  published in Giacometti's Paris, a booklet to accompany the exhibition of his lithographs Paris sans fin.

We spent several hours in the British Museum where we looked at early Egyptian paintings; he found them  extraordinarily 'real and lifelike'. Giacometti brooded silently over a tall T'ang figure of a woman. After walking up to the figure and back again repeatedly he finally reflected that more and more he preferred to anything else the impersonal, objective quality of early art. "Modern artists.' he said 'are frantic egomaniacs-myself included, of course.' Afterwards at lunch he persuaded me, since he spoke no English himself, to tell the girl who brought our order how pretty he thought her. "One living girl like her  is worth more than anything in a museum."

Tomb figure,Tang dynasty, BM, height, 44.5"

This striking figure was on display in the Chinese galleries of the BM in the mid 1960s and I suggest that it is the one referred to by Campbell. Giacometti's interest in early art is well attested by his drawings (recall his sketchbook of interpretive drawings) and by remarks noted by many others. Arikha has him frequently remarking that, "The arm which most resembles an arm is the Egyptian arm."Also his abhorrence of High renaissance art.(Arikha,pp 214/15)

Giacometti's Paris, by Robin Campbell, ACGB,undated, 1978 or later.

On Depiction: selected writings on art" by Avigdor Arikha,London,1995.