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- 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" introduced line into sculpture as an element unto itself.
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Calder always carried wire and pliers with him so that he could “sketch” in his favourite material. This has come to be known as ‘drawing in space’ because he would literally use the wire to create a drawing in the air.
- The term ‘drawing in space’ was first used to describe Calder’s wire sculpture. It is commonly believed that artist Julio González coined the term ‘drawing in space’ in 1932, when he wrote about Pablo Picasso’s iron sculptures of 1928, which Picasso had adapted from some of his earlier line drawings.
- He invented the mobile. The idea of a mobile is now so ingrained in the collective imagination that it is difficult to believe there was a time when it did not exist.
- Duchamp wasn’t the only artist to name Calder’s objects. After he heard that Duchamp had dubbed Calder’s moving objects mobiles, their mutual friend, the abstract artist Jean Arp, sardonically asked Calder, ‘Well, what were those things you did last year — stabiles?’
- In 1943 he was the youngest artist ever to receive a retrospective of his work at the Museum of Modern Art in New York. In 1929 Abby Aldrich Rockefeller founded the Museum of Modern Art in New York.
Feb 5, 2024 · The Origin of ‘Drawing in Space’. The term ‘drawing in space’ is often associated with Calder’s wire sculptures. While it is commonly attributed to artist Julio González, writing about Pablo Picasso’s iron sculptures in 1932, the term was first used in reference to Alexander Calder’s work in 1929.
- ( Content Editor, Art Writer, Photographer )
- Lawnton, Pennsylvania, United States
- Surrealism and kinetic art
- 22 July 1898
- 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
Alexander Calder (born July 22, 1898, Lawnton, Pennsylvania, U.S.—died November 11, 1976, New York, New York) was an American artist best known for his innovation of the mobile suspended sheet metal and wire assemblies that are activated in space by air currents.
- Lynne Warren
Feb 20, 2020 · The much-used art term “drawing in space” was first used to describe Calder’s artworks by an art critic for the French newspaper Paris-Midi in 1929. As well as a sculptor, Calder was a highly skilled jeweller, and created more than 2,000 items of jewellery, often as gifts for family and friends.
Rejecting the traditional understanding of sculpture as grounded, static, and dense, Calder made way for a consideration of volume, motion, and space. Some of his earliest mobiles were motor-activated and displayed on pedestals or hung from walls.
