Alberto Giacometti, Swiss sculptor, painter, draughtsman and printmaker, 1901-1966

Giacometti was a key figure in the Surrealist art movement, but his work resists easy categorization. Some describe it as formalist, others argue it is expressionist or otherwise having to do with what Deleuze calls "blocs of sensation" (as in Deleuze's analysis of Francis Bacon). His works command high prices among collectors all over the world: "L’Homme au doigt" (Pointing Man), for example, sold for $126 million, or $141.3 million with fees, at Christie's "Looking Forward to the Past" sale in New York (11 May 2015), a record for a sculpture at auction. The work had been in the same private collection for 45 years.