Childhood and Early Work

1901–1919

Alberto Giacometti, born in 1901 in Borgonovo near Stampa in the Swiss canton of Graubünden, is the first child of a well-known post-Impressionist painter, Giovanni Giacometti, and his wife Annetta. The boys’ father gives the young Alberto and his brother Diego free access, both to his studio and to all the materials they need to express their creativity. Alberto displays a natural talent for drawing; his earliest works were lead or coloured pencil drawings illustrating scenes from the Bible, but also include family portraits and landscapes of his native valley.