Alexander Calder

(American, 1898 – 1976) 

“The underlying sense of form in my work has been the system of the Universe, or part thereof. For that is a rather large model to work from.”
— Alexander Calder

Innovative sculptor and “King of Wire,” Alexander Calder redefined modern sculpture by incorporating movement within the form. He was among the most famous and creative players in the early movement of kinetic art. A natural artist who was always creating, he would carry a roll of copper, wire, and pliers with him at all times to make small sculptures on a whim. In a time where art was something you looked at on the wall, Calder made three-dimensional pieces that nearly breathed with the viewer. He rarely spoke about his works and wouldn’t call them art, saying, “I call them objects… it washes my hands of having to define them.” His artistic contemporaries Leger, Duchamp, Arp, Klee, and Picasso all influenced his vision, but his greatest influence was his good friend and renowned artist Joan Miró, whose artwork directly inspired many of Calder’s shapes.

Calder was born in Pennsylvania, on July 22, 1898. He was the son of successful sculptor, Alexander Stirling Calder, and grandson of successful sculptor, Alexander Milne Calder. His mother, Nanette Lederer Calder, was a painter. He spent much of his youth in California, where his father was acting Chief of Sculpture for the 1915 World's Fair in San Francisco. At an early age, he made jewelry for his elder sister, Peggy, and toys and gadgets for himself. His parents encouraged him to be inventive and innovative.

Initially he pursued the study of mechanical engineering and received his engineering degree in 1919 from Stevens Institute of Technology, Hoboken. However, while working as a mechanic on the H.F. Alexander passenger ship, he had a moment of inspiration that changed his perspective forever. “It was early one morning on a calm sea, off Guatemala, when over my couch - a coil of rope - I saw the beginning of a fiery red sunrise on one side and the moon looking like a silver coin on the other. It left me with a lasting sensation of the solar system." Shortly after this experience, Calder decided to move back to New York to pursue a career in art.

The early 1920s found him diving into the art world. He found work painting, drawing, and illustrating for newspapers and magazines. He attended the Art Students League in New York from 1923-25. Early in his career, he especially enjoyed working with gouaches and paper for the ease of surface manipulation, and the way they allowed him to experiment on a small scale. His gouaches show his mastery of line and balance, and his distinctive talent with color. The mid-20’s contained many firsts for the artist. He published his first book of illustrations, Animal Sketches, and made his first sculpture - a figurative depiction of an animal constructed of wire used like a line in a line drawing with a wood base. He also had his first exhibition of paintings at the Artists’ Gallery in New York, went to Paris, attended the Académie de la Grande Chaumière, and created his famous Cirque Calder, which he exhibited at the 1927 Salon des Indépendants. During this period, although he had an active career as a sculptor, jeweler, and miniature‐circus manager, and frequently traveled between New York, Paris, and Berlin, he did not make much money. In 1928, Weyhe Gallery held the first show of his wire animals and caricature portraits in New York, in the same year he met Joan Miró in Paris, and the following year, he had his first solo show at the Galerie Billiet in Paris.

There were exciting developments in his personal and professional life in the 1930’s. He met twenty four year old Louisa Cushing James in June of 1929 on the ship taking him from Paris to New York. He immediately fell for her and began courting her. They married in January 1931 in Massachusetts and later settled in Paris. They would have a strong, loyal relationship and two daughters, Sandra and Mary. Artistically, he began to experiment with abstract sculpture and introduced moving parts into his wire sculptures. These mobiles, so dubbed by artist-provocateur Marcel Duchamp, became a huge success in the art world. “Why must art be static? The next step in sculpture is in motion,” Calder said to a reporter in 1932. In 1933, the family moved back to the United States. Albert Einstein, visiting the 1937 World’s Fair in Paris, stood transfixed for a full forty minute cycle in front of Calder’s A Universe, a piece in which a small red sphere and a larger white one move at different speeds along curved wire paths using a motor constructed by the artist.

In the 1940’s, Calder realized his dream of creating monumental sculpture. Stabiles was the term used for abstract monuments of simply painted steel, which can evoke primal animal forms or compose visual poetry and give public spaces a humane touch. As Calder became increasingly famous, he would even paint racecars and airline jets, but never sacrificed the quality or integrity of his work.

The artist’s first retrospective was in 1938 at George Walter Vincent Smith Gallery in Massachusetts, and the Museum of Modern Art in New York gave him a retrospective in 1943. After the war, the family started spending more time in Europe again, buying a house in Sache in 1953. Calder travelled widely during the 1950s and created innovative mobiles that often involved sound or utilized walls. He won the Grand Prize for sculpture at the 1952 Venice Biennale. He exhibited, along with other pioneers of kinetic art, in Le Mouvement (Movement) at the Galerie Denise René, Paris three years later. Later in the decade, the artist executed numerous major public commissions. In the 1960’s, he became a voice for the anti–Vietnam War campaign. In 1964-65, the Guggenheim Museum presented a Calder retrospective. He created a variation on his standing mobiles in 1965 called “totems”, and another called “animobiles” in ‘69.

Calder passed away of a heart attack at age 78 at the home of one of his daughters, on November 11, 1976, in New York, a few weeks after a retrospective of his work at the Whitney Museum. Calder was easy-going and practical minded, and his works radiate a simple quality and primal pleasure, and are often participative, playful, and primary. He explored many mediums including sculpture, motorized sculpture, drawing, oil painting, watercolor, etching and prints, book illustration, posters, plaster, bronze, commercial wallpaper, stage sets, jewelry, and textiles including rugs and tapestries. During his lifetime and since his death, Calder’s work has been in over 100 exhibitions. He was a prolific, well-known, successful artist, producing more than 16,000 works throughout his career. His work is in major museum collections and displayed in public parks and plazas all over the world.

American Fine Art, Inc. is proud to feature the original works and limited editions of Alexander Calder. Visit our 12,000 sq. ft. showroom in Scottsdale, Arizona or call today. Our website is offered only as a limited place to browse or refresh your memory and is not a reflection of our current inventory. To learn more about collecting, pricing, value, or any other art information, please contact one of our International Art Consultants. We look forward to giving you the one on one attention you deserve when building your fine art collection. We hope you find our website helpful and look forward to seeing you in Scottsdale soon.