Giovanni GIACOMETTI

Giovanni Giacometti is a Swiss painter of the beginning of the 20th century. He is the father of the famous sculptors Alberto and Diego Giacometti and the architect Diego Giacometti, as well as the cousin of the painter and poster designer Augusto Giacometti.
After two years at the Kunstgewerbeschule in Münich, he moved to Paris with his friend Cuno Amiet and studied at the Academy Julian with W.A. Bouguereau.
In 1894, Giovanni Segantini, one of his mentor, introduced him to the beauty of the mountainous landscapes and to the Divisionism, a neo-impressionist style where the colours are separated into individual dots or patches that optically interact together. This style had a great influence on his art throughout his life.
In 1898, the Kunsthaus Zürich organised a joint exhibition with Cuno Amiet and Ferdinand Hodler. From that time on, Giovanni Giacometti participated in several important exhibitions throughout Europe that culminated with a solo exhibition in 1912 in Zürich and a retrospective in Bern in 1920. The work reproduced for the poster of this retrospective shows two young men at Lake Sils in Graubünden, presumably Alberto and Diego. A woodcut of this work previously existed showing younger children. Bright, warm colours are applied in large strokes, with the bodies standing out against a plain green background.
In addition to Divisionism, Giovanni Giacometti explored different styles, from Post-Impressionism to Expressionism and even Symbolism.