From contemporary to modern, experience the world's great works of art from home. Learn about the art world for free with the Bloomberg Connects app. Download for free.
- Download Now
Bloomberg Connects is a free mobile
app featuring guides to ...
- Cultural Spaces
Explore Our Cultural Spaces.
Find The Perfect Space For You.
- For Partners
Explore interactive guides to
hundreds of museums, cultural ...
- Download Now
Search results
On April 27, 1931, at the Galerie Percier on the Right Bank of Paris, Alexander Calder presented some 20 pieces of abstract sculpture that would turn out to be a game changer—for Calder, for...
- Jed Perl
- Summary of Alexander Calder
- Accomplishments
- Biography of Alexander Calder
American artist Alexander Calder redefined sculpture by introducing the element of movement, first through performances of his Cirque Calderand later with motorized works and, finally, with hanging works called "mobiles." In addition to his abstract mobiles, Calder also created static sculptures, called "stabiles," as well as paintings, jewelry, th...
Many artists made contour line drawings on paper, but Calder was the first to use wire to create three-dimensional line "drawings" of people, animals, and objects. These "drawings in space" introdu...Calder shifted from figurative linear sculptures in wire to nonobjective forms in motion by creating the first mobiles. Composed of pivoting lengths of wire counterbalanced with thin metal elements...Childhood
Alexander Calder was born into a long line of sculptors, being part of the fourth generation to take up the art form. Constructing objects from a very young age, his first known art tool was a pair of pliers. At eight, Calder was creating jewelry for his sister's dolls from beads and copper wire. Over the next few years, as his family moved to Pasadena, Philadelphia, New York, and San Francisco, he crafted small animal figures and game boards from scavenged wood and brass, and in 1909, he mad...
Early Training
In 1922, he took evening drawing classes at the 42nd Street New York Public School. The next year he studied painting at the Arts Students League (1923-1925), with John Sloan and George Lukswhile working as an illustrator for the National Police Gazette. An assignment to illustrate acts at the Ringling Brothers and Barnum & Bailey Circus led to his interest in the circus. In 1926, after showing paintings at The Artists' Gallery in New York he moved to Paris. Once there, he began making the mo...
Mature Period
In the late 1920s Calder created more figurative oil paintings, but a 1930 visit to Piet Mondrian'sstudio led Calder to shift from figuration to abstraction permanently. Upon entering the studio, Calder became fixated on the overall space and the colored cardboard rectangles covering one of the walls: he said he would like to make them “oscillate.” Calder began painting and sculpting in the abstract. In 1931 he accepted an invitation to join the influential Abstraction-Creation group. That sa...
- American
- July 22, 1898
- Lawnton, Pennsylvania
- November 11, 1976
Easygoing and practical-minded, Calder was one of the few American visual artists who established himself in 1920s Paris, an era legendary for its aesthetic ferment that produced modern artists as exemplified by Pablo Picasso and Joan Miró. Calder also possessed a considerable intellect and a playful sense of humour along with his keen visual ...
- Lynne Warren
Nov 27, 2017 · The premise of his project is that Calder is not a minor artist but seems so only because he has never slotted neatly into a fixed story of modernism. Calder fits neither the Clement...
Apr 25, 2020 · Perl recalls Calder’s first retrospective exhibition, which took place at the Museum of Modern Art in 1943; it affirmed the uniqueness of his contributions to modern art’s still-evolving...
Dec 4, 2015 · The American artist Alexander Calder (1898–1976) probably best known for his abstract coloured ‘mobiles’ as well as his large outdoor sculptures, was a key figure in the history of 20th-century art. Tate Etc. talks to his grandson.
People also ask
What was Alexander Calder known for?
How did Alexander Calder redefine sculpture?
When did Alexander Calder create abstract sculpture?
Was Alexander Calder a sculptor?
How did Calder change figurative sculptures to abstract forms in motion?
Did Mondrian make Calder a great abstract artist?
Alexander Calder is known for inventing wire sculptures and the mobile, a type of kinetic art which relied on careful weighting to achieve balance and suspension in the air. Initially Calder used motors to make his works move, but soon abandoned this method and began using air currents alone.
