Alexander Calder (1898 - 1976 )

Alexander Calder, a sculptor and painter, was born in Lawton, Pennsylvania in 1898. He grew up in a family of artists. His mother was a painter; both his father, Alexander Stirling Calder, and his grandfather, Alexander Milne Calder, were well-known sculptors. The young Calder studied in New York, Paris, and Berlin. While in Paris he was befriended by the Paris art community of the time which included artists such as Joan Miro, Fernand Leger, Piet Mondrian, Jean Cocteau, Jean-Paul Sartre, Jean Arp, and Marcel Duchamp. The influence of these artists can be seen in his work.

Calder’s first experiments with mobiles were inspired by the circus. In fact, one of his oldest and most famous works arose from this; it was appropriately entitled “Circus.” From this point, inspiration took hold and he began producing more mobiles, working with wire and sheet metal. These mobiles were vast hanging structures that incorporated movement and imagination. They often have a humorous, childlike, or theatrical quality about them and Calder himself once said, “My fan mail is enormous — everybody is under six.” As time passed and the size and quantity of the mobiles grew he would send them to foundries to be fabricated, for work and storage space was limited despite the fact that he had several studios in New York and Paris.

After mobiles, Calder began producing stationary abstract sculptures called “stabiles” around 1930; the term was coined by the artist Jean Arp. Most of these sculptures are “dull black, riveted sheet-steel structures.” Neither his stabiles nor mobiles were constructed from any type of sketch. Many of his stabiles were too large to be constructed in the studio, so the artist worked with two foundries in Waterbury: The Segre Foundry and Waterbury Ironworks. He made no blueprints or drawings to instruct the workers but instead made models which the workers would disassemble and project to enlarge. They would then construct the individual pieces to size and assemble them together to create the stabiles. It was not uncommon for as many as six stabiles to be in progress at one time, for Calder did not wait for commissions but would pay for manufacturing them himself.

Nicknamed “Sandy” by his friends, Alexander Calder was a truly unique American artist. As his friend Joan Miro stated, “Sandy the man, the friend, has a heart as big as Niagra. Calder the artist has the force of the ocean.” (AMM)

Calder Stabile, Princeton University

Calder "Stabile," Princeton University. Photograph © Walter Choroszewski (see link below). Used with permission.

Like many of Calder’s sculptures, this work at Princeton University is a dull black, riveted sheet-steel structure – a "stabile," or stationery abstract sculpture. Another public sculpture by Calder in New Jersey is “El Sol Rojo” (1968), located in the sculpture garden of the New Jersey State Museum.

Calder is most famous for his mobiles and large stabiles, although he also created paintings in gouache. Calder’s characteristic materials are metal and wire but he has worked with wood, porcelain, and glass as well. He is well known for his “unique enlivening of abstract art by humor . . . without compromising the nonrepresentational approach.” (AMM)