Enhanced descriptions from Syndetics:

When we look at a painting hanging on an art gallery wall, we see only what the artist has chosen to disclose--the finished work of art. What remains mysterious is the process of creation itself--the making of the work of art. Everyone who has looked at paintings has wondered about this, and numerous efforts have been made to discover and depict the creative method of important artists. "A Giacometti Portrait "is a picture of one of the century's greatest artists at work.James Lord sat for eighteen days while his friend Alberto Giamcometti did his portrait in oil. The artist painted, and the model recorded the sittings and took photographs of the work in its various stages. What emerged was an illumination of what it is to be an artist and what it was to be Giacometti--a portrait in prose of the man and his art. A work of great literarydistinction, "A Giacometti Portrait "is, above all, a subtle and important evocation of a great artist.

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Kirkus Book Review

For 18 days back in the early Sixties, writer James Lord sat for a portrait in the Paris studio of his friend, sculptor-painter Alberto Giacometti (19011966). And this seductive little book--privately published in 1965, now revised--is the record of those frustrating, intense, chain-smoking sessions, during which the artist entertainingly (though with genuine torture underneath) rails against himself, his model, the world, and especially the much-despised Pablo Picasso. He laments the impossibility and meaninglessness of portraits in a photo-era (""Ingres could do it. He could finish a portrait""). He laughs over Lord's brutish face: ""Full face you go to jail and in profile you go to the asylum."" He yearns for a visitation by his great inspiration: ""If only CÉzanne were here, he would set everything right with two brush strokes."" Whenever the work is going well he announces, ""Just wait. . . I'm going to wreck it now."" Whenever the work is going badly, he cries in panic: ""Your head's going away!"" or ""It's lopsided again!"" And, always, he bemoans the hopelessness of his whole career, his quest to just paint what he sees: ""If only someone else could paint what I see. . . it would be marvelous, because then I could stop painting for good."" Finally, Lord must go to America, and the work must stop (""It's only beginning. . . and you're leaving. That's a bore""), so, perforce, the portrait is finished: ""We've made progress together,"" says Giacometti, grudgingly. . . . With visits from the artist's family, a few insights into the actual brushwork that's constantly going on, and photos of the portrait at various stages--a diverting bijou of an art-book, lifted above dilettante-ism by the great, awful, eloquent Giacometti humor. Copyright ©Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.