''L’Homme qui marche I'' ( ''The Walking Man I'' or ''The Striding Man I'', lit. ''The Man who Walks I'') is the name of any one of the cast
bronze sculpture
Bronze is the most popular metal for Casting (metalworking), cast metal sculptures; a cast bronze sculpture is often called simply "a bronze". It can be used for statues, singly or in groups, reliefs, and small statuettes and figurines, as w ...
s that comprise six numbered editions plus four artist proofs created by
Swiss sculptor
Alberto Giacometti in 1961.
On 3 February 2010, the second edition of the cast of the sculpture became one of the most expensive works of art ever sold at auction, for $104.3 million. Its price meant it was considered
the most expensive sculpture, until May 2015, when another Giacometti work, ''
L'Homme au doigt
''L'Homme au doigt'' (, "The Man with the Finger"; also called ''Pointing Man'' or ''Man Pointing'') is a 1947 bronze sculpture by Alberto Giacometti, that became the most expensive sculpture ever when it sold for US$141.3 million on 11 May 201 ...
'', surpassed it.
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
The Venice Biennale (; it, La Biennale di Venezia) is an international cultural exhibition hosted annually in Venice, Italy by the Biennale Foundation. The biennale has been organised every year since 1895, which makes it the oldest of ...
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.
Edition number one of the sculpture is located at the
Carnegie Museum of Art
The Carnegie Museum of Art, is an art museum in the Oakland neighborhood of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Originally known as the Department of Fine Arts, Carnegie Institute and was at what is now the Main Branch of the Carnegie Library of Pittsbur ...
in
Pittsburgh
Pittsburgh ( ) is a city in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, United States, and the county seat of Allegheny County. It is the most populous city in both Allegheny County and Western Pennsylvania, the second-most populous city in Pennsylva ...
,
Pennsylvania
Pennsylvania (; ( Pennsylvania Dutch: )), officially the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, is a state spanning the Mid-Atlantic, Northeastern, Appalachian, and Great Lakes regions of the United States. It borders Delaware to its southeast, ...
.
Edition number two belongs in a private collection. Other casts of ''L'Homme qui marche I'' include those at the
Fondation Maeght
The Maeght Foundation or Fondation Maeght () is a museum of modern art on the ''Colline des Gardettes'', a hill overlooking Saint-Paul de Vence in the southeast of France about from Nice. It was established by Marguerite and Aimé Maeght in 1 ...
in
Saint-Paul, Alpes-Maritimes, the
Kröller-Müller Museum
The Kröller-Müller Museum () is a national art museum and sculpture garden, located in the Hoge Veluwe National Park in Otterlo in the Netherlands. The museum, founded by art collector Helene Kröller-Müller within the extensive grounds of ...
in the Netherlands, the
Albright-Knox Art Gallery
The Buffalo AKG Art Museum, formerly known as the Albright–Knox Art Gallery, is an art museum at 1285 Elmwood Avenue, Buffalo, New York, in Delaware Park. the museum's Elmwood Avenue campus is temporarily closed for construction. It hosted e ...
in
Buffalo, NY
Buffalo is the second-largest city in the U.S. state of New York (behind only New York City) and the seat of Erie County. It is at the eastern end of Lake Erie, at the head of the Niagara River, and is across the Canadian border from South ...
, and
Louisiana Museum of Modern Art
The Louisiana Museum of Modern Art is an art museum located on the shore of the Øresund Sound in Humlebæk, north of Copenhagen, Denmark. It is the most visited art museum in Denmark, and has an extensive permanent collection of modern and cont ...
near
Copenhagen
Copenhagen ( or .; da, København ) is the capital and most populous city of Denmark, with a proper population of around 815.000 in the last quarter of 2022; and some 1.370,000 in the urban area; and the wider Copenhagen metropolitan ar ...
,
Denmark
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.
Auction
On 3 February 2010, edition number two of the sculpture came up for auction at
Sotheby's
Sotheby's () is a British-founded American multinational corporation with headquarters in New York City. It is one of the world's largest brokers of fine and decorative art, jewellery, and collectibles. It has 80 locations in 40 countries, an ...
auction house in London.
The piece was sold by German banking group
Commerzbank, which 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
Lily Safra
Lily Safra (née Watkins; also Cohen, Monteverde and Bendahan; 30 December 1934 – 9 July 2022) was a Brazilian-Monegasque billionaire and socialite who amassed considerable wealth through her four marriages. She had a significant art collectio ...
, widow of the prominent
Lebanese banker
Edmond Safra
Edmond J. Safra ( ar, ادموند يعقوب صفرا; 6 August 1932 – 3 December 1999) was a Lebanese-Brazilian banker who continued the family tradition of banking in Brazil and Switzerland. He was married to Lily Watkins from 1976 until ...
for £58 million.
Including the
buyer's premium
In auctions, the buyer's premium is a charge in addition to the hammer price (i.e. the winning bid announced) of an auction item, or lot. The winning bidder is required to pay both the hammer price and the percentage of that price called for by the ...
the price reached £65 million (US$103.7 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, and that for the most expensive sculpture sold at a public auction, which was held by the 5000-year-old ''
Guennol Lioness
The ''Guennol Lioness'' is a 5,000-year-old Mesopotamian statue allegedly found near Baghdad, Iraq. Depicting a muscular anthropomorphism, anthropomorphic leonine-human, it sold for $57.2 million at Sotheby's auction house on December 5, 2007. ...
'', sold at Sotheby's in 2007 for $57.2 m. When expressed in British pounds and when
inflation
In economics, inflation is an increase in the general price level of goods and services in an economy. When the general price level rises, each unit of currency buys fewer goods and services; consequently, inflation corresponds to a reduct ...
is ignored, the bronze also broke the record price for an art work sold at auction which, since 2004, was held at $104.2 million (then £58.2 m) by
Pablo Picasso
Pablo Ruiz Picasso (25 October 1881 – 8 April 1973) was a Spanish painter, sculptor, printmaker, ceramicist and Scenic design, theatre designer who spent most of his adult life in France. One of the most influential artists of the 20th ce ...
's ''
Garçon à la pipe''.
The most expensive work of art sold at a public auction remained
Van Gogh
Vincent Willem van Gogh (; 30 March 185329 July 1890) was a Dutch Post-Impressionist painter who posthumously became one of the most famous and influential figures in Western art history. In a decade, he created about 2,100 artworks, inc ...
's ''
Portrait of Dr. Gachet
''Portrait of Dr. Gachet'' is one of the most revered paintings by the Dutch artist Vincent van Gogh. It depicts Dr. Paul Gachet, a homeopathic doctor and artist with whom van Gogh resided following a spell in an asylum at Saint-Rémy-de-Prove ...
'', which was bought in May 1990 for $82.5 million (approx. $138.4 million in
CPI
A consumer price index (CPI) is a price index, the price of a weighted average market basket of consumer goods and services purchased by households. Changes in measured CPI track changes in prices over time.
Overview
A CPI is a statistic ...
-adjusted 2010 US dollars),
CPI Inflation Calculator, US Bureau of Labor Statistics
while Jackson Pollock
Paul Jackson Pollock (; January 28, 1912August 11, 1956) was an American painter and a major figure in the abstract expressionist movement. He was widely noticed for his " drip technique" of pouring or splashing liquid household paint onto a hor ...
's ''No. 5, 1948
''No. 5, 1948'' is a painting by Jackson Pollock, an American painter known for his contributions to the abstract expressionist movement. It was sold on 22 May 2006 for $140 million, a new mark for highest ever price for a painting, not surpass ...
'', which was privately sold for $140 million in 2006 (approx. $151 million in 2010 dollars), remained the most expensive work of art sold overall.
See also
*List of most expensive sculptures
This is a list of the highest known prices paid for sculptures.
Most valuable sculpture
Alberto Giacometti's ''L'Homme au doigt'' was auctioned for $141.3m at Christie's in May 2015, the highest price for any sculpture at auction.
Giacometti's '' ...
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Homme Qui Marche I
Sculptures by Alberto Giacometti
1961 sculptures
Bronze sculptures
Bronze sculptures in the United States
Albright–Knox Art Gallery