Diego Giacometti (1902-1985)

Diego's earliest stone sculptures, dating from 1935, depict animal motifs, lions and serpents among them. Though Diego would return to animal imagery throughout his career, he was drawn most of all to birds, in time consecrating "a cult to [them], who multiplied on his leaf-tables and his tree-pedestal tables. It was a bird, heavenly messenger, that he carved in low relief and modeled in the round on his father's and brother's tombs" (D. Marchesseau, op. cit., p. 20).