James Lord Books

When we look at a painting hanging on an art gallery wall, we see only what the artist has chosen to disclose--the finished work of art. What remains mysterious is the process of creation itself--the making of the work of art. Everyone who has looked at paintings has wondered about this, and numerous efforts have been made to discover and depict the creative method of important artists. A Giacometti Portrait is a picture of one of the century's greatest artists at work.James Lord sat for eighteen days while his friend Alberto Giamcometti did his portrait in oil. The artist painted, and the model recorded the sittings and took photographs of the work in its various stages. What emerged was an illumination of what it is to be an artist and what it was to be Giacometti--a portrait in prose of the man and his art. A work of great literary distinction, A Giacometti Portrait is, above all, a subtle and important evocation of a great artist.

James Lord arrived in Paris near the end of World War II, eager to distinguish himself and meet the greatest artist of the era, Pablo Picasso. His journey to persuade Picasso to draw two portraits of him and gain access to the artist's studio marks the beginning of a haunting narrative by a gifted chronicler of modern art. The memoir explores Lord's intense yet ambivalent relationship with Picasso, but it delves deeper into his complex connection with Dora Maar, Picasso's mistress at the time. A legendary and reclusive figure, Maar was a talented photographer and painter, still residing in the spaces Picasso had provided for her over fifty years earlier. Lord's portrayal of her is rich with psychological insight, showcasing his ability to bring her character to life. The narrative also features a vibrant cast of secondary figures from the postwar Parisian art scene, including Balthus, Jacques Lacan, Andre Masson, and Giacometti. This memoir not only captures the essence of Lord's experiences but also serves as a significant contribution to the history of contemporary art.

The Swiss artist Alberto Giacometti (1901-66) was arguably the greatest sculptor of the twentieth century. He was also--as James Lord persuasively argued in A Biography --a heroic figure whose vocation sustained him through a life of crippling anxiety and erotic guilt.Almost twenty years after it first appeared, Giacometti has attained the status of a classic, one of the most candid and complete biographies of an artist in our time. In Mythic Giacometti , Lord reveals the hidden "blueprint" of that a daringly literal, visionary interpretation of the myth of Oedipus as it affected the conduct and outcome of Giacometti's life. The result is a case study both in the development of an artist and in the writing of biography. Lord concentrates on the private totems of Giacometti's life-family legend, childhood memory,illness and injury, crucial sexual encounters, intimations of mortality-that amounted, in Lord's view, to signs of a tragic destiny directly linked to the central tragedy of Western literature.

Anfang der sechziger Jahre sitzt der amerikanische Schriftsteller James Lord seinem Freund Modell. In den gemeinsamen Sitzungen nimmt nicht nur Lords Porträt auf der Leinwand Gestalt an, auch die Person des Künstlers – der Bildhauer und Grafiker Alberto Giacometti – erscheint in einem immer deutlicheren Licht. Die in nur seltenen Fällen bekannte Entstehung eines Kunstwerks, der Prozess von Veränderung, Zerstörung und Neuschöpfung, wird hier nachvollziehbar. Der Dialog der beiden Männer wird zum wechselseitigen Bespiegeln und Ringen um die künstlerische Wiedergabe der Wirklichkeit. Alberto Giacometti ist Porträtist und Porträtierter zugleich – er zeichnet seinen Biographen, der die Gespräche im Atelier nutzt, um die innere Welt des Künstlers und Menschen Giacometti zu Papier zu bringen.