What is the significance of this very special exhibition?

This exhibition is the first Giacometti exhibition to be held in Ireland for 30 years. It is a first for the National Gallery of Ireland. It has been co-organised with the Fondation Giacometti, Paris, which holds the largest collection of the artist’s works in the world. This has been a wonderful collaboration and has allowed for a fascinating selection of art to be shown. As the title “Giacometti: From Life” suggests, the exhibition highlights the artist’s work made from the life model, and includes portraits of friends and family members who were integral to his life and art. The exhibition includes the first sculpture Giacometti  made, aged 14 – Head of Diego, Child (1914-15), and his final work – Seated Man (Lotar III) (1965).

As a sculptor Alberto Giacometti had a very distinctive style. Can you tell us about his work in general?

Giacometti is best-known as a sculptor but, as the exhibition shows, he made many paintings and drawings too. In terms of subject-matter his main interest was the human figure and particularly the head. He usually worked from life, from people he knew well, or those he wanted to know better. His brother Diego and wife Annette were his main models. They sat for him in his studio for hours at a time and over many years. Giacometti was interested in holding the gaze of his sitters. He always started an artwork by detailing the eyes, and felt that if he had them right all else would flow. No matter how often he looked at his models or how well he knew their features he always felt that his work was unfinished and incomplete.

Did Giacometti have any links with Ireland? 

Giacometti didn’t visit Ireland and didn’t have any links to it. Paris and Stampa, in his native Switzerland, were the two places that anchored him throughout his life. He did however know Samuel Beckett, enjoyed his company, and admired his work. They spent time together in Paris, often going for long evening walks. On Beckett’s request Giacometti made a tree for the set of a production of Waiting for Godot at the Odéon in 1961. Giacometti and Francis Bacon met in the early 1960s. They shared an artistic affinity. At a time when abstraction was seen as the foremost expression of modernism, Bacon and Giacometti were unusual in their focus on making figurative art.

Do you have a particular favourite from this exhibition?

I don’t have a favourite artwork per se but am drawn to many for different reasons – Giacometti’s first sculpture of Annette; a small head made in plaster and painted with touches of reds and blue. Made in the early days of their relationship when she joined him in Paris after the war. I am also fascinated by the tiny bronze head of Simone de Beauvoir, placed on a pin-like stem. Despite the diminutive scale, de Beauvoir occupies the space all around her. I especially love the almost-abstract painting of Japanese philosophy professor Isaku Yanaihara made in 1956. Although painted in subdued tones of grey, black, and ochre, it is luminous, as though lit from within. One of the wonderful things about seeing a group of Giacometti’s work together is that you can very quickly begin to make visual connections between them, and feel a strong sense of his artistic drive and the humanity underpinning it.

Are there other special events happening around the exhibition?

We are very excited to welcome fashion designer and multi-disciplinary artist Richard Malone as our artist-in-residence for “Giacometti: From Life”. Born in Wexford and now based in London, Malone will travel to Dublin this summer to create a contemporary response to the exhibition. Following an extended period researching Giacometti in consultation with curators and key staff, an onsite residency will take place at the Gallery’s education studio throughout June and July. As well as creating new art, the residency will offer new opportunities for audiences to engage with the exhibition and with the programme.

Need to Know: “Giacometti: From Life” will open on Saturday, April 9 and will run until September 4. Tickets can be purchased online, starting from €5; www.nationalgallery.ie