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The Arts Intel Report

The Encounter: Barbara Chase-Riboud/Alberto Giacometti

Barbara Chase-Riboud with her sculptures, as well as Alberto Giacometti’s.

May 5 – Oct 9, 2023
11 W 53rd St, New York, NY 10019, United States

The American artist Barbara Chase-Riboud always knew she was going to be a sculptor. She enrolled in classes at the Philadelphia Museum of Art in 1946, at age seven, and by 16 she’d already sold her first work. As a young adult, in the early 1960s, Chase-Riboud moved to Paris, where she met Alberto Giacometti. The pair immediately bonded over their monumentally scaled works, their mutual passion for Ancient Egyptian symbolism and for bronze. Though at first Chase-Riboud’s style was similar to Giacometti’s, her vision evolved, moving into abstraction. In this exhibition the artist has selected female figures by Giacometti and placed them alongside her own sculptures, creating a conversation between artistic friends. —Elena Clavarino

Photo: © Succession Alberto Giacometti/ADAGP Paris 2023/© Barbara Chase-Riboud