Alberto Giacometti (1901-1966), one of the most significant figures in 20th-century art, was throughout his life closely attached to his family, and in particular to his parents Giovanni and Annetta Giacometti, in their native Swiss village of Stampa. At least once a week he wrote to the parents to keep them up-to-date on everything important to him, maintaining this routine even when a telephone was installed at their house in the remote Val Bregaglia. Their entire correspondence comprises more than 1,000 letters. For the first time ever, excerpts from this body of documents are now published in this volume. They reveal fascinating insights into this close family relationship and the manifold exchanges about core issues of Albertos life and work as an artist. The letters tell of his artistic education in Switzerland and the early years in Parishis studies at the art academy and encounters with the avant-garde, his joining with and later turning away from the Surrealist movementas well as of his search for a new figuration between 1935 and 1946. Thus, the book provides entirely new knowledge about the evolution and circumstances of one of Modernitys greatest artists.

Die 1965 gegründete Alberto Giacometti-Stiftung in Zürich verfügt über die bedeutendste museale Sammlung von Werken des Schweizer Künstlers Alberto Giacometti (1901-1966). Werke aus der Stiftungssammlung sind als Dauerleihgaben im Kunsthaus Zürich, im Kunstmuseum Basel und im Kunst Museum Winterthur ausgestellt. Casimiro Di Crescenzo ist freischaffender Kunsthistoriker sowie Kurator und Spezialist für die Kunst Alberto Giacomettis.