Amazon.com
James Lord met Swiss-born sculptor Alberto Giacometti (1901-66) in 1952, when he had moved beyond the mysterious surrealist works that first won him fame (The Palace at 4 A.M.) to the spookily attenuated figures that made him a preeminent profiler of existential unease. Lord astutely chronicles this transformation, and the evaluation of Giacometti's formidable personality is notable for its sensitive delineation of his ambivalent feelings toward women. Without scanting the sculptor's tragic view of life, the author also inspires exhilaration with his portrait of a man who was always true to his art.
The New York Times Book Review, Dan Hofstadter
... [a] fascinating new biography.... Mr. Lord writes especially vividly about the late periods, after 1952, when he got to know Giacometti, and about its major calamity, the arrival of fame and fortune.... [Lord] is a keen psychologist, given to the sort of convoluted probing one finds so often in old French diaries and letters.
