Calder, Alexander
(Lawnton, Pennsylvania, 1898–New York, 1976)
Alexander Calder (Lawnton, Pennsylvania, 1898–New York, 1976) played a pivotal role in expanding the boundaries of sculpture in the twentieth century.
Calder came from a family of sculptors and his keen interest in the medium, encouraged by atmosphere in which he grew up, was evident from early childhood. He nevertheless studied mechanical engineering at the Stevens Institute of Technology, although he soon drifted back to art. By 1923 he was living in New York and had joined the Art Students League, and in 1926 he relocated to Paris, where he met Fernand Léger (1881–1955), Marcel Duchamp (1887–1968) and Joan Miró (1893–1983), embarking on a long friendship with the Catalan artist. In Paris he started making animal figures out of wood and wire, in the manner of the “drawings in space” of Julio González (1876–1942), which would become the seed for his famous Cirque Calder. In October 1930, after visiting the studio of Piet Mondrian (1872–1944), he embraced abstraction while continuing his research into movement in sculpture. He joined the Abstraction-Création group founded by Mondrian and, in 1931, he made his first moving sculptures with little motors, which he would remove from his subsequent creations. In 1932 he exhibited his first “mobiles” (as Marcel Duchamp christened them), structures composed of abstract organic forms that swayed gently and harmoniously, seeking interaction with the light, the surrounding space and the shadows cast by the forms. These pieces contrast with what Jean Arp (1886–1966) called his “stabiles”, non-moving or static sculptures. In the 1940s, by then settled in the United States, he built monumental sculptures from sheet metal for numerous collections and public places. In addition to sculptures, during his successful and prolific career he also made numerous pieces of jewellery, domestic utensils, artistic toys, tapestries, stage sets and even illustrations for books.
