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L'Homme qui marche I (Walking Man I) is a bronze sculpture created by Swiss sculptor Alberto Giacometti in 1961. On 3 February 2010, it became the most expensive work of art ever sold at auction.

The sculpture

The bronze sculpture depicts a lone man in mid-stride with his arms hanging at his side. The piece is described as "both a humble image of an ordinary man, and a potent symbol of humanity". Giacometti is said to have viewed "the natural equilibrium of the stride" as a symbol of "man's own life force".

In 1960, Giacometti was asked to be part of a public project by the Chase Manhattan Plaza in New York to plant bronze figures outside the building. He created several sculptures, with L'Homme qui marche I among them. Giacometti struggled with the project and eventually abandoned the commission. However, in 1961 he cast the life-size work in bronze and exhibited it at the Venice Biennale a year later. L'Homme Qui Marche I was created at the high point of Giacometti's mature period and represents the pinnacle of his experimentation with the human form. The piece is considered to be one of the most important works by the artist and one of the most iconic images of Modern art.

Auction

On 3 February 2010, the sculpture came up for auction at Sotheby's auction house in London. The piece was sold by German banking group Commerzbank, who had acquired it when it took over the Dresdner Bank in 2009. The sale of the sculpture marked the first time in 20 years that a life-size Giacometti figure of a walking man came to auction. It had been estimated to sell for between £12 and £18 million, but in just eight minutes the sculpture was bought by an anonymous phone bidder for £58 million. Including the buyer's premium the price reached £65 million (US$104.3 million).

The piece broke the record for a Giacometti work at auction, which was set at $27.5 million by Grande Femme Debout II in 2008. The bronze also broke the record price for an art work sold at auction (ignoring general inflation) which, since 2004, was held at $104.2 million by Pablo Picasso's Garçon à la pipe. The most expensive work of art sold at a public auction remained Van Gogh's Portrait of Dr. Gachet, which was bought in May 1990 for $82.5 million (~$135 million in CPI-adjusted 2009 US dollars), while Jackson Pollock's No. 5, 1948, which was privately sold for $140 million in 2006 (~$150 million in 2009 dollars), remained the most expensive work of art sold overall.

See also

List of most expensive paintings

References

1. "Giacometti Sculpture 'L'Homme qui marche I' Fetches $104.3 Million". The Huffington Post. Retrieved 3 February 2010.
2. ^ "Sotheby's Sells Giacometti for Record $104.3 Million". The Wall Street Journal. Retrieved 4 February 2010.
3. "Set to Fetch a Grand Price". The Wall Street Journal. Retrieved 4 February 2010.
4. ^ Design of the current banknote series: 100 franc banknote, Swiss National Bank, retrieved 4 February 2010.
5. ^ "Life-size Giacometti bronze goes under the hammer". Reuters. Retrieved 3 February 2010.
6. "Sotheby's will offer Giacometti's L'Homme Qui Marche I". The Art Wolf. Retrieved 4 February 2010.
7. ^ "Giacometti sculpture fetches £65m at Sotheby's auction". BBC. Retrieved 3 February 2010.
8. "L'Homme Qui Marche I". Sotheby's. Retrieved 3 February 2010.
9. "Giacometti sculpture fetches £65m at Sotheby's auction". BBC. Retrieved 3 February 2010.
10. "Monet fetches record price at New York auction". AFP. Retrieved 3 February 2010.
11. "Giacometti sculpture fetches record $104M". MSNBC. Retrieved 3 February 2010.

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