Art in America, Graphics '70 Portfolio, 1970

Alexander Calder   Master Artists

Alexander Calder, a major sculptor of the abstract movement, was born in Lawton, Pennsylvania, 1898, and passed away in New York, 1976. As a child, Calder enjoyed building things and went on to study mechanical engineering. His engineering background later gave him the knowledge to develop the mechanisms of his sculptures. In 1923, he decided to devote himself fully to art and went to New York in pursuit of fine art studies.

His first freehand drawings depicting athletes, acrobats, and street scenes, which were early indicators of his sculptural style. He drew animals at the zoo and began taking a keen interest in motion, movement, and animation. In 1929, Calder moved to Paris and met some of the most important artists of the time, including Man Ray, Marcel Duchamp, and Joan Miró.

Upon seeing Piet Mondrian's colored squares for the first time in 1930, Calder had a genuine revelation. He imagined them floating in space; movement later became the main “material" of his work. He embraced geometric abstraction and produced moving wire sculptures, or "mobiles" as Marcel Duchamp called them. They broke completely with the dense and imposing sculptures of the time as Calder's works are distinguished by their lightness. This marked the beginning of kinetic art; even if Calder's goal was not so much movement yet, but the search for balance, symmetry, silence, lightness, and subtlety.

From 1933 onwards, Alexander Calder's works received critical and public acclaim, particularly his painting "La Fontaine de Mercure", shown at the Universal Exhibition in 1937. In 1952, he received the Grand Prize at the Venice Biennale, and in 1964 the Guggenheim dedicated a major retrospective to him. His influence still resonates in modern days: in 2016, the Tate Modern held a major retrospective on the legendary sculptor.