Rockefeller Collection's Bronze Lamps Set Based on Giacometti's 'Tête de Femme'

For Swiss sculptor Diego Giacometti, a talent for art ran in the family — his brothers were multi-disciplinary artist Alberto Giacometti and architect Bruno Giacometti, and their father was Post-Impressionist painter Giovanni Giacometti. But Diego was a gifted artist in his own right, creating furniture and lively animal sculptures that earned him considerable acclaim in his later years. 

Diego was born in the farming village of Borgonovo in 1902. The Giacometti patriarch encouraged his sons to pursue art, and Diego and Alberto began working together in a Paris studio when Diego was 25. They engaged in a rivalry that is typical of like-minded siblings but were also supportive of one another. 

Alberto pushed Diego to become a caster, and Diego served as his brother’s assistant, helping bring his designs to life. Diego also sat as a model for many of Alberto's now-revered sculptures and busts, as the sculptor worked chiefly with models plucked from his personal life. The duo also regularly created artwork and objects for French interior and furniture designer Jean-Michel Frank, whose other collaborators included Pablo Picasso and Henri Matisse. 

Diego began focusing more on his own bronze sculpture during World War II. Inspired by his childhood farm life, he created bronze horses, dogs, cats, mice and foxes. During the late 1940s, Alberto began work on his most famous modernist sculptures — very tall and thin figurines that came to be associated with frailty and loneliness — while Diego branched out into furniture design. The latter’s tables, seating and other pieces earned him an array of devoted clientele. Celebrated French fashion designer Hubert de Givenchy sought his work out with frequency.

After Alberto died in 1966, Diego continued designing furniture and attracting more clients. He worked on projects for Fondation Maeght, Marc Chagall National Museum and Musée Picasso Paris. 

Find a collection of original Diego Giacometti art and furniture on 1stDibs.

Alberto Giacometti was a painter, printmaker and furniture designer but he is best known as one of the 20th century’s most important sculptors. He is revered for the elongated, slender human figures he created in the years following World War II that reflected existentialism and the trauma associated with the conflict.

Giacometti was born in Borgonovo, Switzerland, in 1901 to a creative family. His father Giovanni was a Post-Impressionist painter, his godfather Cuno Amiet was a Fauvist painter, his brother Bruno was an architect, and his other brother Diego was an artist and furniture designer who also served as Giacometti’s model. (The sculptor worked chiefly with models plucked from his personal life.)

Beginning in 1922, Giacometti studied at the Académie de la Grande-Chaumière in Paris and was influenced by the Cubist work of Alexander Archipenko, Raymond Duchamp-Villon and the post-Cubist sculptures of Jacques Lipchitz and Henri Laurens.

During the 1930s, Giacometti designed furniture such as lamps, vases and wall décor to earn a living, often collaborating with interior designer Jean-Michel Frank, whose interiors tastefully mixed extravagance with sophisticated simplicity. However, Giacometti’s passion lay in creating sculptures.

Alberto and his brother Diego left Paris in 1940 to escape the Nazi invasion and spent time in the South of France before fleeing to Geneva, remaining there until 1946. In 1947, Giacometti began work on his most famous sculptures — very tall and thin figurines that came to be associated with frailty and loneliness.

Giacometti catapulted to fame in the United States following two exhibitions of his sculptures in 1948 and 1950 at the Pierre Matisse Gallery in New York City — Jean-Paul Sartre authored the catalogue essay for the latter. In 1961, Giacometti’s friend, Irish playwright Samuel Beckett, asked him to design the set for a re-staging of his play “Waiting for Godot.” His response took on the form of a single plaster tree.

In 1962, Giacometti won the grand prize for sculpture at the Venice Biennale, and for much of the rest of his career, he created modern paintings, drawings and sculptures of plaster, clay and bronze in his small Paris studio. He died in 1966.

Giacometti’s works continue to enthrall collectors. In 2010, his life-size bronze sculpture L'Homme qui marche (“the man who walks”), which now adorns the 100 Swiss Franc banknote, became one of the most expensive sculptures to be sold at auction.

On 1stDibs, discover a range of vintage Alberto Giacometti wall decorations, prints and sculptures.