Giacometti wrote these lines: I have wanted to write this, and a few other memories of shit and masturbation for a long time, but that’s not enough to make a book, let alone an art book. Then all those long walks through Paris at night in 1923-1924, looking for a prostitute, obsessed by prostitutes, other women didn’t exist for me, only prostitutes attracted and enthralled me, I wanted to see them all, know them all, and every night I went on those long walks alone. For the past few days something new for me has been happening in my view of things, I’ve been seeing things differently, in the same vein as since 1945, when for the first time it seemed like I could actually see what was around me a bit, but I didn’t see like I have been able to for the past few days, but how am I going to paint that?

Later, Giacometti learned how to see and to grasp what was around him, to see Paris, to dissect it, partially by agreeing to make Paris sans fin for the publisher Tériade, and partially by letting his inspiration run free, using a multiplicity of tools: pencil, pen-and-ink, ball-point pen and more. This selection of those Parisian sketches, most of which are previously unpublished, is being presented to the public here for the first time.