Alberto Giacometti, one of the foremost artists of the twentieth century, created sculptures and paintings of stark and haunting beauty. Now, in the one hundredth anniversary of his birth, this book celebrates his genius, tracing his development from the tiny sculptures he made during World War II to the characteristically emaciated figures of his mature style. Michael Peppiatt gives a vivid account of the crucial moment when Giacometti returned from his wartime exile in Geneva to his beloved Paris, a city traumatized by the war but receptive to new movements and ideas. He describes how Giacometti’s way of seeing lifeand his way of workingunderwent several dramatic transformations during this period. He sheds light on Giacometti’s closest relationships at the time, not only with his lover, Isabel Delmer, his brother Diego, and his young wife, Annette, but also with his writer friends Jean-Paul Sartre, Maurice Merleau-Ponty, Samuel Beckett, and Jean Genet. Exploring the mainsprings of Giacometti’s creativity, Peppiatt presents four key texts by the artist, translated into English for the first time, that poignantly describe and illuminate his deepest fears and obsessions. Using rarely seen photographs Peppiatt also discusses Giacometti’s studio, which the artist regarded as a continual, indispensable source of stimulus. Richly illustrated with reproductions of Giacometti’s sculptures, paintings, and drawings, the book sheds new light on his singular style of expression.

Giacometti in Postwar Paris

Peppiatt, Michael

Arts & Photography

Yale University Press

Alberto Giacometti, one of the foremost artists of the 20th century, created sculptures and paintings of stark and haunting beauty. Published for the 100th anniversary of his birth, this volume is a celebration of his genius, tracing his development from the tiny sculptures he made during World War II to the characteristically emaciated figures of his mature style. Michael Peppiatt gives an account of the crucial moment when Giacometti returned from his wartime exile in Geneva to his beloved Paris, a city traumatized by the war but receptive to new movements and ideas. He describes how Giacometti's way of seeing life - and his way of working - underwent several dramatic transformations during this period. He sheds light on Giacometti's closest relationships at the time, not only with his lover, Isabel Delmer, his brother Diego and his young wife Annette, but also with his writer friends Jean-Paul Sartre, Maurice Merleau-Ponty, Samuel Beckett and Jean Genet. Exploring the mainsprings of Giacometti's creativity, Peppiatt presents four key texts by the artist, translated into English, that poignantly describe and illuminate his deepest fears and obsessions. Using photographs, Peppiatt also discusses Giacometti's studio, which the artist regarded as a continual, indispensable source of stimulus. Illustrated with reproductions of Giacometti's sculptures, paintings and drawings, the volume seeks to shed new light on his singular style of expression.

Alberto Giacometti in Postwar Paris

A keenly and personally observed record of how a place can be so identified with an artist and so evocative of his life’s work that it becomes his single greatest achievement This deeply engaging book introduces the reader to the creative chaos of the tiny Parisian studio of the great sculptor Alberto Giacometti, from the moment he and his brother, Diego, arrived in 1927, with all their possessions in a wheelbarrow, until Alberto’s death in 1966. Michael Peppiatt relates how the artist first worked there as a member of the Surrealist movement and then how he gradually made his mark on Paris’s artistic, literary, and intellectual worlds. After an enforced wartime exile in Geneva in a miserable hotel, he returned to Paris and to the same broken-down little shed of a studio behind Montparnasse where he struggled to realize his pared-down vision of mankind and which became a magnet for many of the great artists and writers of the time (from Picasso and Braque to Balthus, from Breton and Genet to Beckett). Peppiatt prefaces his story with a poignant, personal narrative of how as a young man he arrived in Paris with an introduction from Francis Bacon to Giacometti; the encounter was forestalled by the artist’s very recent death, but Peppiatt instead got to know the key people in Giacometti’s world. He explains how the studio, now dismantled, seems to be both Giacometti’s most important artwork, encompassing countless complete or unfinished works, and the archive of years of struggle. With Giacometti’s death, it became his greatest achievement, containing as it did the traces of a lifetime’s search for truth. This vivid exploration of one of the most evocative and influential spaces in 20th-century art connects us with both a unique career and an entire, outstanding moment in French culture.

In Giacometti’s Studio

Individual Artists

From the screaming heads and snarling chimpanzees of the late 1940s to the anonymous figures trapped in tortured isolation some ten years later, during one crucial decade British artist Francis Bacon created many of the most central and memorable images of his entire career. The artist enters the decade of the 1950s in search of himself and his true subject; he finishes ten years later having completed some of his great masterpieces and having acquired technical mastery over one of the most disturbing and revealing visions of the 20th century. This book brings both Bacon the man and Bacon the painter vividly to life, focusing for the first time on this key period in his development. Michael Peppiatt, the leading authority on Bacon and a close friend of the artist for thirty years, reveals essential keys to understanding Bacon's mysterious and subversive art. The book presents and assesses a wide range of paintings (many of them rarely seen before) representing all of Bacon's major themes during the 1950s. Also included is an account of the artist's life in the 1950s.

Francis Bacon in the 1950s

University of East Anglia

One of the most elusive and enigmatic creative geniuses of modern times, Francis Bacon was a man of endless contradictions and facets. In this invaluable book Michael Peppiatt, a major art critic and close friend of Bacon’s, offers an entertaining and uniquely well-informed portrait of this complex artist.
Peppiatt’s collection of interviews and essays spans more than forty years―from 1963, when the two men met, to 2007, when Peppiatt wrote an essay explaining Bacon’s passionate involvement with Van Gogh. The pieces in between include discussions of Bacon’s working methods and techniques, his unlikely relationship with his London dealer, his attitude toward Christian belief and classical myth, and his defining friendship with the eminent French writer Michel Leiris. Peppiatt also provides fascinating anecdotes about the artist’s early life, his intimate relationships, and his connections with the artists who were his contemporaries and friends. In addition, among the interviews reproduced for the book are new transcripts of two interviews presenting previously omitted material that brings out many little-known aspects of Bacon’s presence and personality.

Francis Bacon: Studies for a Portrait

History & Criticism

The first exploration of Bacon’s compelling work during the key decade when he was attaining the height of his powers From the screaming heads and snarling chimpanzees of the late 1940s to the anonymous figures trapped in tortured isolation some ten years later, during one crucial decade British artist Francis Bacon created many of the most central and memorable images of his entire career. The artist enters the decade of the 1950s in search of himself and his true subject; he finishes ten years later having completed some of his great masterpieces and having acquired technical mastery over one of the most disturbing and revealing visions of the 20th century. This book brings both Bacon the man and Bacon the painter vividly to life, focusing for the first time on this key period in his development. Michael Peppiatt, the leading authority on Bacon and a close friend of the artist for thirty years, reveals essential keys to understanding Bacon's mysterious and subversive art. The book presents and assesses a wide range of paintings (many of them rarely seen before) representing all of Bacon's major themes during the 1950s. Also included is an account of the artist's life in the 1950s.

A renowned curator and respected insider of the international art scene since the mid-1960s, Michael Peppiatt has spent his professional life with many of the greatest artists of the 20th century. His close friendships and frequent studio visits with Dubuffet, Sonia Delaunay, Francis Bacon, Henry Moore, Balthus, Oldenburg, Brassaï, and Cartier-Bresson, among many others, have produced an incredible archive of interviews, from formal question-and-answer sessions to off-the-cuff conversations. These interviews combine to give a unique perspective on art from World War II to the present day.
Peppiatt has selected forty-five of the most noteworthy and fascinating of his conversations with artists, from the world-famous to the under-recognized. The author approaches his subjects with a characteristic mix of passion, insight, and humor in a book that is consistently entertaining and informative, as the artists open up in unexpected ways about their work and their lives.

Interviews with Artists: 1966-2012

Selected writings from a leading critic of modern art,&nbsp;"the best art writer of his generation" (Art Newspaper) Michael Peppiatt, guest curator of the Royal Academy of Arts' 2021 exhibition 'Francis Bacon: Man and Beast', has for more than 50 years written trenchant and lively dispatches from the centre of the international art world. In this collection of key essays, Peppiatt gives his unique insight into the making and interpretation of modern art, from Manet and Degas through to Kandinksy and Picasso to Freud and Hockney.&nbsp; Covering a whole spectrum of artists and art-world figures--from pioneers such as Klimt and Soutine, to collectors and dealers who played a pivotal role in the modern art world, to artists such as Jean Dubuffett, Francis Bacon and Zoran Music, with whom he had close relationships--Peppiatt interweaves personal anecdote with critical judgement. Each text is accompanied by a new introduction, written in the author's signature vivid and jargon-free style, in which he contextualises his writings and reflects on significant moments in a lifetime of artistic engagement. This volume will provide readers with an exhilarating tour of the extraordinary reach and variety of modern art.&nbsp; &nbsp;

The Making of Modern Art: Selected Writings

Francis Bacon: Anatomy Of An Enigma

This book, a biography on Francis Bacon, is inspired by the friendship the author had with Bacon and based on records of the conversations that took place since 1963. The book forms the first comprehensive account of the artist's life and his work.

Francis Bacon: Anatomy of an Enigma

Routledge

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Peppiatt, Michael. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Books by Peppiatt, Michael

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Peppiatt, Michael. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Giacometti in Postwar Paris

Alberto Giacometti in Postwar Paris

In Giacometti’s Studio

Francis Bacon in the 1950s

Francis Bacon: Studies for a Portrait

Francis Bacon in the 1950s

Interviews with Artists: 1966-2012

The Making of Modern Art: Selected Writings

Francis Bacon: Anatomy of an Enigma

Francis Bacon: Anatomy Of An Enigma