Alberto Giacometti: Toward the Ultimate Figure presents an ensemble of 60 masterpieces highlighting Alberto Giacometti’s major achievements of the postwar years (1945–66). This touring exhibition explores the artist’s creative process and how he came to produce his iconic figures.

Giacometti (1901–1966) reasserted the validity of the figure and figural representation at a time when abstract art had grown dominant in the international art world. His works became associated with existentialism, and to many, Giacometti’s emaciated figures—evoking alienation, fear, insignificance, and uncertainty—embody the psychological complexities of the Cold War era. Stripped to essentials, compressed and flattened, these fragile beings present themselves as expressions of a deep crisis facing art and humanity.

The exhibition unfolds in 12 thematic sections that illuminate Giacometti’s focus on the human form and the development of his signature style. Beginning with “Paris: Life in a Studio in Montparnasse,” the sections continue through subjects including “Obsessed with Heads,” “Into Thin Air,” “Giacometti Seen by Photographers, “ A Portrait in Film,” “The Literary Scene,” “The Human Condition,” and “Grappling with the Real.”