Swiss artist Giacometti's works on show in London

The works of one of the most distinctive sculptors of the 20th century are showcased at a new show which opened on Wednesday at London's Tate Modern art gallery.

The gallery has organized the first major retrospective of Alberto Giacometti (1901-1966) for 20 years.

Celebrated as a sculptor, painter and draughtsman, Giacometti's distinctive elongated figures are some of the most instantly recognizable works of modern art.

The exhibition reasserts Giacometti's place alongside Henri Matisse, Pablo Picasso and Edgar Degas as one of the great painter-sculptors of the last century.

The gallery had access to the collection and archive of the Fondation Alberto et Annette Giacometti in Paris to put together an exhibition which features more than 250 works. It includes rarely seen plasters and drawings making their first public show. The show examines Giacometti's career over five decades.

Born in Switzerland in 1901, Giacometti moved to Paris in the 1920s where he became engaged with cubism and later joined the Surrealist Group in 1931.

The exhibition reveals how Giacometti fused the ancient and the modern and broke down barriers between the decorative and the fine arts.

Giacometti left Paris in 1941, relocating to the Swiss city of Geneva until the end of WWII. After the war and his return to Paris, Giacometti began creating the elongated figures for which he is best known.

While Giacometti is best known for his bronze figures, Tate Modern is repositioning him as an artist with a far wider interest in materials and textures, especially plaster and clay. The exhibition runs until September. Endit