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Alexander CalderLarge Black Face With Sun, 19681968
1968
About the Item
Large Black Face with Sun, 1968
gouache and ink on paper
29.25 x 43"
signed and dated "Calder 68" lower right
This work is registered in the archives of the Calder Foundation, New York.
EXHIBITED
Calder, Grand Valley State College, Manitou Gallery, Allendale, Michigan, May 4-June 15, 1969
Alexander Calder: Mobiles, Stabiles Gouaches, Drawings from the Michigan Collections, Flint Institute of Arts, February 20-
March 27, 1983, no. 47, pp. 30 and 32, illustrated
Alexander Calder: Sculpture and Works on Paper, John Berggruen Gallery, San Francisco, April 4-26, 2006
“At the time and practically ever since, the underlying form in my work has been the system of the universe, for that is a rather larger model to work from.” – Alexander Calder, 1951 (‘What Abstract Art Means to Me’, The Bulletin of the Museum of Modern Art, Vol. 18, No. 3, Spring, 1951)
Alexander Calder’s interest in cosmology, the philosophical and astronomical systems of the universe, is at the heart of his creative output. The discovery of Pluto in the 1930s was a defining moment that instigated his fascination with the solar system and astronomy. Over the ensuing years he focused on creating entire worlds like ‘Calder’s Circus’ and his ‘Constellations’ sculptures. Universal laws of mass, direction and space informed not only his sculptural work but the dynamic line visible in all of his two-dimensional work like the gouache here, Large Black Face with Sun. The work was created in the year after he had completed El Sol Rojo for the Olympics Pavilion in Mexico. The waving black rays of the anthropomorphized sun face echo the curved black legs of El Sol Rojo while the solid red abstracted sun in the form of a circle directly references the red sun of El Sol Rojo.
Calder began to spend time in Mexico in 1967 in preparation for the installation of El Sol Rojo and immersed himself in local Mexican and Yucatan culture and history. In Large Black Face With Sun, the black face appears as a direct reference to the central face on the famed Aztec Calendar Stone installed in 1964 in Mexico’s National Museum of Anthropology and History. With his typical whimsy, simple silhouettes, primary color and lively painting, Calder here creates a lovely homage to Mexico and its ancient Aztecs, specifically their cosmogony, in his essential ‘Calderian’ way.
- Creator:Alexander Calder (1898 - 1976, American)
- Creation Year:1968
- Dimensions:Height: 39.38 in (100.03 cm)Width: 53.38 in (135.59 cm)
- Medium:
- Movement & Style:
- Period:
- Condition:Generally very good condition - 2 small spots of inpainting in the white areas, invisible to the eye, only visible under UV.
- Gallery Location:Greenwich, CT
- Reference Number:
Alexander Calder
The American sculptor Alexander Calder is known as the father of the mobile, a moving artwork composed of delicately balanced sculptural forms suspended from the ceiling.
Because Calder's parents, both artists themselves, did not want him to suffer the hardships of trying to make a living in art, they encouraged the young Calder to study mechanical engineering at the Stevens Institute of Technology, in Hoboken, New Jersey. He worked a number of jobs, including as a hydraulic engineer and draftsman for the New York Edison Company, before deciding to pursue an artistic career. He never abandoned his engineering background, however, applying his understanding of gears and moving parts in all his artworks, from mechanical toys like the Cirque Calder (1931) and his revered prints to his free-standing abstract sculptures, called stabiles.
In 1926, Calder moved to Paris and established a studio in the Montparnasse quarter. He began creating the many parts of his famous miniature circus from found materials, such as wire, string, cloth, rubber and cork. Designed to be transportable, Cirque grew to fill five suitcases over the years. Always interested in putting forms in motion, Calder also pioneered a new art form called wire sculptures, which he described as “drawings in space.” Like his famous mobiles, the wire sculptures were suspended so that they turned with any movement of the air, presenting different forms when viewed from different angles.
In the 1950s, Calder returned to his roots in mechanical engineering, creating monumental abstract sculptures that verged on the architectural. He worked from loose gestural drawings like this preparatory sketch for his Man Stabile, from 1966. Throughout his career, he also worked as a set designer for the theater, as well as an illustrator and printmaker, producing vibrant, whimsical drawings for books and journals.
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