Swiss artist Alberto Giacometti is best known for elongated sculptures of the human form—his male figures generally appear in motion, while his female figures stand tall and upright. Many commentators have described these works as physical embodiments of postwar existential crisis. Giacometti spoke of trying to capture an interpretation of how things appear to us, rather than how they actually are: “I cannot simultaneously see the eyes, the hands, and the feet of a person standing two or three yards in front of me, but the only part that I do look at entails a sensation of the existence of everything.” In turn, his figures appear compressed by the space around them, as demonstrated by the sculpture L’Homme au doigt (Man Pointing), 1947, in Glenstone’s collection, a characteristically ethereal bronze form with its arms outstretched.

–Emily Benoff, from the Glenstone Field Guide