A Giacometti Portrait

My sister-in-law gave me this book as a present a couple of years ago and I really enjoyed it. In it, the American writer James Lord recounts his experience during the eighteen days he spent in Giacometti’s studio, sitting for a portrait. 

He describes Giacometti's' mood swings, his silence, his laughter and joking and how he "demolished with joy” the portrait at different stages only to begin again the next day. It's an in-depth record of what it was like to sit for Giacometti. There was a great line in it when Giacometti says to his irate sitter: ''The best way to obtain success is to run away from it.

I was looking for old footage of Giacometti last night and I saw that a movie based on this book is about to come out. It's called "Final Portrait" 2017 written and directed by Stanley Tucci. I can't wait to see it. Whatever the movie is going to be like, I can really recommend the book.