Artist Results

record 1 of 1

Alexander Calder American (Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, 1898 - 1976) View objects by this artist.

Alexander Calder came from a family of Philadelphia artists, but art was not his first career choice as a young man. He was fascinated with mechanical devices throughout childhood, and his parents were supportive when he enrolled to study mechanical engineering at the Stevens Institute of Technology, New Jersey, in 1915. Calder soon showed himself to be a brilliant student, grasping difficult concepts with ease. After working a few years in the field, however, he was not satisfied, and in 1923 he returned to school in New York to study painting and drawing.  Still, he never lost his fascination with intricate mechanical structures, which eventually led him to work in three dimensions.
Calder's first commission as an artist came in the spring of 1924, when he was asked to draw illustrations for the National Police Gazette. In the spring of 1925, his assignment was the Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus. For two weeks, he spent almost every waking hour sketching what he saw.  The experience had long-lasting impact, providing years of material for his creative work. His fascination with the circus culminated in the Cirque Calder (Calder Circus), a witty performance with carefully constructed miniature wire characters.  Calder performed it many times from the mid-1920s into the late 1930s, and occasionally afterward, both for friends and the public in Paris and New York.
Early in his career, Calder's involvement with the Abstraction-Création group in Paris brought him in contact with a number of artists, including Joan Miró, Piet Mondrian, Jean Arp, and Fernand Léger. Some were acquaintances, while others were close friends. Calder's early work was figurative, but that changed in the fall of 1930 when a friend invited him to visit Mondrian's studio. Calder was deeply affected and later remarked, "this one visit gave me a shock that started things," referring to how he developed abstract mobile and stabile forms.
Calder's training as an engineer was important to his working method. Known for carrying a pair of pliers with him at all times, Calder's first contribution to modern sculpture was working exclusively in wire during the 1920s. Early sculptures, which have been described as three-dimensional drawings, were mainly portraits of friends and depictions of animals or circus characters.
After a few years of making wire figures, Calder's work took a different direction, but he did not know what to call his new pieces. One night, a friend brought Marcel
Duchamp to his studio in Paris, and Calder took the opportunity to ask the master of visual and linguistic innuendo for advice. "I asked him what sort of name I could give these things and he at once produced 'Mobile.' In addition to something that moves, in French it also means motive."
In response to [commissions for] large, open areas, Calder began to increase the scale of his work. In order to make large-scale sculpture, Calder developed a new method of production. He first made a maquette, or scale model, which he then took to a commercial foundry where the equipment and space required for the full-scale work were available. Although his method of production became more industrial, Calder remained deeply invested. He was active throughout the process, often visiting the site to inspect progress and make adjustments.

Source: National gallery of Art
http://www.nga.gov/feature/artnation/calder                                              


Your current search criteria is: Alexander Calder