Traces of a Friendship

Alberto Giacometti, one of the greatest sculptors of the 20th century, gave physical expression to his twin obsessions of the human form and the alienation of modern life. Because of his canonical position in art history and the reams of scholarship produced about him, Giocometti remains to many the elusive master artist, distant and remote on the Olympus of creative endeavour. Ernst Scheidegger, close friend of the artist, knew a very different Giacometti. Scheidegger accompanied him to his studio, to bistros of Paris and the family home in the Swiss mountains. Traces of a Friendship is a document of this intimate life of Giacometti, consisting of photographs Scheidegger took over two decades. The pictures allow access to the most closely held aspects of the artist’s life: sketching in his studio, having a cup of coffee, his works in progress, his art in installation views. Scheidegger captures the essence of the artist’s working life in images artful in their own right.