Walking Man I

A gaunt bronze man, his surface pitted and scraped as though weathered away, strides forward with no arms swinging and no face to read — mass stripped off until only forward motion is left. Cast in 1960 as part of a group Giacometti developed for an unrealised plaza commission in New York, it distils the existentialist figure he had pursued since the war. Editions stand in collections including the Fondation Giacometti in Paris, and in 2010 one briefly became the most expensive sculpture ever sold — but its standing rests on being the period's most recognisable image of human fragility.