Tate Modern excelled itself with its Giacometti retrospective. It’s not easy to take a familiar modern master and return a new and compelling view of his work. Many years ago, MoMA in New York failed the challenge abysmally. They had nothing new to say about the artist and went through the motions of a retrospective. Worst of all: you came away thinking that Alberto Giacometti (1901–66) was tired and obvious. How wrong could you be?

Tate Modern worked closely with the Fondation Alberto et Annette Giacometti with its cradle-to-grave collection of the master’s work, plus the rich archive of documents. During his lifetime Giacometti formed a strong personal bond with the Tate. In 1965, after an earlier retrospective, he wrote to Norman Reid, the modest but effective director: ‘May I tell you how much I enjoyed my visits to London and how touched I was by your kind welcome ... also how touched and grateful I am that you have chosen so many works for the Tate Gallery.’ The Tate had given him a room in the basement as a studio. The curator was David Sylvester, doyen of European art critics and deeply sympathetic to the work. Fifty-one years after Giacometti’s death, the bond between museum and artist still holds. Tate Modern’s account is intimate and revealing where MoMA’s was starchily institutional.