Image: Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York
The Metropolitan Museum of Art is presenting 'Giacometti in the Temple of Dendur', an installation of works by Alberto Giacometti (1901–1966) at The Met Fifth Avenue in New York. The exhibition is on view in Gallery 131 through September 8, 2026, free with museum admission. It is co-organized by The Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Fondation Giacometti, Paris.
The presentation brings together 14 works in bronze and plaster—emblematic pieces from the collection of the Fondation Giacometti in Paris alongside three works from The Met's own collection—and sets them within one of New York's most iconic spaces. Placed on and around the Temple of Dendur, Giacometti's figures stand alone or in groups on the temple platform, echoing both the artist's own compositions and the life that once surrounded the temple.
The installation foregrounds Giacometti's lifelong fascination with the art of ancient Egypt. Egyptian statues he encountered as a young artist in Italy left a lasting mark on his visual repertoire, and after moving to Paris he regularly visited the Egyptian galleries of the Louvre. That dialogue with Egypt appears in his sketches of walking figures in profile, later realized in works such as 'Walking Woman (I)' (1932), which is installed in the entrance hall of the Temple of Dendur.
The Temple of Dendur itself was completed around 10 BCE as a commission by Caesar Augustus, gifted from Egypt to the United States in 1965, and has been on view at The Met since 1978. The exhibition is made possible by the Kate W. Cassidy Foundation.
