The recurring themes of the Swiss sculptor and painter Alberto Giacometti (1901-1966) are time, movement, and transparence. He is best known for his elongated figural structures.

The son of a painter, Alberto Giacometti was born in Stampa on Oct. 10, 1901. He began to draw and model at an early age, and in 1919 he enrolled at the École des Arts-et-Métiers in Geneva. He traveled in Italy in 1920-1921. He studied with the sculptor Émile Antoine Bourdelle at the Académie de la Grande-Chaumière in Paris from 1922 to 1925. After sharing a studio in Paris with his brother Diego from 1925 to 1927, Giacometti set up on his own.

Giacometti's early work derived from cubist (Torso, 1925), African, and Cycladic sculpture (Spoon Woman, 1926). But by 1928 he began to develop a personal treatment of the medium, moving to more original ideas--in part a result of his meeting that year...