Alberto Giacometti (1901-1966)

Pierre Reverdy (1889-1960) was a French poet who lived and worked in Paris at the beginning of the Twentieth Century. He interacted and collaborated with many of his avant-garde contemporaries, including Juan Gris, Pablo Picasso and Georges Braque, and in doing so, he redefined poetry. Although he was influenced by Cubism and Dadaism, his work was most admired by the Surrealists. In the first Surrealist Manifesto, André Breton referred to Reverdy as "the greatest poet of the time." It is not surprising that Brassaï, a photographer who worked closely with the Surrealists, would photograph Reverdy. Giacometti's drawing, which is based on the photograph (fig. 1), therefore speaks of the complex relationships between the different artists and ideas that characterized the time in which Reverdy, Brassaï and Giacometti were working.

(fig. 1) Brassaï, Pierre Reverdy, 1932, Musée National d'Art Moderne, Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris.