A pointing man may vie with a Picasso painting to break a record at the art auction house, Christies.
Alberto Giacometti finished the life-sized bronze sculpture overnight in 1947. The sculpture is a figure of a man who is pointing ahead of him and is called, “Looking forward to the Past.” Art critics have explained that the work expressed hope for the future at the end of World War II. It is thought to belong to New York real estate tycoon Sheldon Solow. A Giacometti sculpture of a goddess on a chariot was sold to hedge fund manager Steve Cohen for $101 million.
It is possible that the pointing man sculpture could surpass the record amount commanded by a Francis Bacon triptych that sold for $142 million in 2013. Another contender is a Pablo Picasso painting, Les Femmes d’Alger, which the artist painted in 1955 and has an estimated value of $140 million.
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Giacometti described how he created the sculpture, according to the Financial Review, “I did that piece in one night between midnight and nine the next morning. That is, I’d already done it, but demolished it and did it over again, because the men from the foundry were coming to take it away, and when they got here, the plaster was still wet.”
