Four Figurines on a Stand
- Artist: Alberto Giacometti
- Date: 1950–1965, cast c.1965–6
- Medium: Bronze
- Dimensions: object: 1562 x 419 x 314 mm
- Museum: Tate Modern
- Collection record: Tate Modern website
Listen to the free audio guide
About this artwork
This is the Four Figurines on a Stand by Alberto Giacometti. A bronze group cast around 1965–6, it grew out of a memory Giacometti had of watching four women in a Parisian brothel, separated by a polished floor that felt almost impossible to cross. The sculptor wanted to capture that sense of distance, so he placed four slender, nearly life‑sized figures on a narrow stand with a sloping base that echoes the retreating floor. The small scale and the angled slab heighten the feeling that the figures are a step away. Giacometti made several versions, one of which was destroyed in the Tate’s basement in 1965. The surviving cast, created from a later iteration, shows slightly fuller heads and more articulated arms, giving the work a fresh, almost intimate energy while still holding that haunting sense of separation.
See it in person
Four Figurines on a Stand is in the collection of Tate Modern on Bankside, London — free to enter. Point your phone at any artwork there and audioguide.london plays a free audio guide in six languages — no app download needed.
