Temple of Dendur Hosts Giacometti's Sculptures

Seventeen works by Alberto Giacometti are now on display in the Temple of Dendur at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in a special exhibition co-organized by the New York museum and the Paris-based Fondation Giacometti.

The temple forms a spectacular setting for the Swiss artist's work, almost six decades after his death and, coincidentally, 59 years after the museum received the temple as a gift from the Egyptians, with the blessing of US President Lyndon B. Johnson.

Alberto's younger brother, Diego, is also in the news this month. A table by the designer, which came from a private Manhattan collection, Guéridon Arbre au Hibou (1983), sold for $660,400 at Christie's New York on June 10.

In the same sale, another piece by Diego, Trapezoidal, Low Table, model with deer and dogs (1963), sold for $444,500, more than twice the low estimate.

While Alberto and Diego are the best known of the Giacomettis, the Kunstmuseum Graubünden in Chur celebrates the entire family that hailed from the south-eastern Swiss canton.

Alberto and Diego's brother, Bruno, was an important modernist architect who designed the Swiss pavilion in Venice's Giardini among other notable buildings.

The dynasty was founded by the artist Giovanni Giacometti. A year ago, his colorful, post-Impressionist painting, Fiammetta II (1909), sold for $1.08m at Koller Auktionen.

The museum in Chur is also the home of works by the early abstract artist Augusto Giacometti, who was Giovanni's cousin and the brothers' uncle. He was honored with a retrospective at the Venice Biennale in 1932.

Giacometti in the Temple of Dendur runs until September 18.