Skip to main content
Video Loading
Want more images or videos?
Request additional images or videos from the seller
1 of 9

(after) Alexander Calder
Calder Stabiles

About the Item

Calder Stabiles Galerie Maeght Fine Art Poster Print 30 x 22 inches 31 x 23 inches with frame Alexander Calder (American, 1898-1976) One of America's best known sculptors, "Sandy" Calder became most famous for his kinetic abstract mobiles. He also did floor pieces, was a painter in watercolor, oil and gouache, did etchings and serigraphs, and made jewelry and tapestries as well designed theater stage settings and architectural interiors. His art reflects his reputation of being a beloved, decent human being who continually searched for fun and humor in that around him. He was highly independent from luxuries and focused on creativity. His last words, "I'll do it myself", tell the story of his life. He was born in Philadelphia, the son of Alexander Sterling Calder and the grandson of Alexander Milne Calder, well-known sculptors of public monumental works. His mother, Nanette Lederer Calder, was a professional portrait painter. Obviously he was nurtured in an environment of art, and from an early age, he was making figures from found objects. Because of the father's ill health and the necessity for a drier climate, the family moved to Oracle, Arizona in 1905, and five years later to Pasadena, California. When Sandy was a teenager, the family returned to Pennsylvania. He was unable to make a decision about a vocation, but his fascination with machines led to his earning a degree in mechanical engineering from the Stevens Institute of Technology in 1919. He tried a variety of jobs including working in the boiler room of a cruise ship. In 1923, he enrolled in the Art Students League in New York City, where his teachers were John Sloan, Guy Pene Du Bois, and Boardman Robinson. In classes there he did numerous oil paintings and also humorous drawings of sporting events for the National Police Gazette. In 1925, he produced an illustrated book titled Animal Sketching, one-line drawings that foreshadowed his early wire sculptures of figures and animals. In 1926, encouraged by an engineer friend of his father to follow his talent, he went to Paris where he lived the next seven years and shortly after his arrival began doing wire sculpture. During this period, his mother gave him seventy-five dollars a month for living expenses. He assembled a "Circus," of miniature, hand activated one-wire figures with which he gave performances in his studio. These pieces were made by bending and twisting a single wire into humorous portraits, animals, and figure groups. He also met many of the leading avant-garde artists of the day including Piet Mondrian, who influenced Calder's geometric, non-objective constructions that he began producing in 1931. His floor pieces, named "stabiles" by Jean Arp, were exhibited in a gallery exhibition organized by Marcel Duchamp, who coined the word "mobile" for the hanging, kinetic pieces. Soon, Calder was creating many of these wind-driven works. Calder's mobiles were first shown in the United States in 1932, and the next year he returned to America and purchased a home in Roxbury, Connecticut where he lived the remainder of his life and gained much attention from that time. Dancer Martha Graham used several of his sculptures in her modern dance performances, and personnel at the Museum of Modern Art in New York began purchasing pieces from him including his first large-scale piece called Whale in 1937. During World War II when metal was scarce, he made mobiles and stabiles from carved, painted wood, and in the early 1950s he added to his repertoire wall pieces and mobiles that incorporated sound. Many federal agencies and businesses commissioned works by him, and most major American museums have his pieces in their collections. His death in 1976 occurred coincidentally with a major retrospective of his work at the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York.
  • Creator:
    (after) Alexander Calder (1898, American)
  • Dimensions:
    Height: 30 in (76.2 cm)Width: 22 in (55.88 cm)
  • Movement & Style:
  • Period:
  • Condition:
  • Gallery Location:
    Missouri, MO
  • Reference Number:
    1stDibs: LU747314093942

More From This Seller

View All
Teres de Grand Feu
By (after) Joan Miró
Located in Missouri, MO
Terres de Grand Feu Miro Artigas Galerie Maeght Fine Art Poster Print 30 x 21 inches 31 x 22 inches with frame Joan Miro (Spanish, 1893-1983) Joan Miro was born in Barcelona, Spain...
Category

20th Century Surrealist Abstract Prints

Materials

Color

Observador de Pajaros
By Rufino Tamayo
Located in Missouri, MO
"Observador de Pajaros" 1950 By. Rufino Tamayo (Mexican, 1899-1991) Edition 83/210 Lower Right Signed Lower Left Unframed: 15.5" x 22.5" Framed: 21.75" x 28.25" Rufino Tamayo (August 26, 1899- June 24, 1991) A native of Oaxaca in Southern Mexico, Rufino Tamayo's father was a shoemaker, and his mother a seamstress. Some accounts state that he was descended from Zapotec Indians, but he was actually 'mestizo' - of mixed indigenous/European ancestry. (Santa Barbara Museum of Art). He began painting at age 11. Orphaned at the age of 12, Tamayo moved to Mexico City, where he was raised by his maternal aunt who owned a wholesale fruit business. In 1917, he entered the San Carlos Academy of Fine Arts, but left soon after to pursue independent study. Four years later, Tamayo was appointed the head designer of the department of ethnographic drawings at the National Museum of Archaeology in Mexico City. There he was surrounded by pre-Colombian objects, an aesthetic inspiration that would play a pivotal role in his life. In his own work, Tamayo integrated the forms and tones of pre-Columbian ceramics into his early still lives and portraits of Mexican men and women. In the early 1920s he also taught art classes in Mexico City's public schools. Despite his involvement in Mexican history, he did not subscribe to the idea of art as nationalistic propaganda. Modern Mexican art at that time was dominated by 'The Three Great Ones' : Diego Rivera, Jose Clemente Orozco, and David Alfaro Siqueros, but Tamayo began to be noted as someone 'new' and different' for his blending of the aesthetics of post Revolutionary Mexico with the vanguard artists of Europe and the United States. After the Mexican Revolution, he focused on creating his own identity in his work, expressing what he thought was the traditional Mexico, and refusing to follow the political trends of his contemporary artists. This caused some to see him as a 'traitor' to the political cause, and he felt it difficult to freely express himself in his art. As a result, he decided to leave Mexico in 1926 and move to New York, along with his friend, the composer Carlos Chavez. The first exhibition of Tamayo's work in the United States was held at the Weyhe Gallery, New York, in that same year. The show was successful, and Tamayo was praised for his 'authentic' status as a Mexican of 'indigenous heritage', and for his internationally appealing Modernist aesthetic. (Santa Barbara Museum of Art). Throughout the late thirties and early forties New York's Valentine Gallery gave him shows. For nine years, beginning in 1938, he taught at the Dalton School in New York. In 1929, some health problems led him to return to Mexico for treatment. While there he took a series of teaching jobs. During this period he became romantically involved with the artist Maria...
Category

20th Century Abstract Abstract Prints

Materials

Lithograph

Tree and Dove
Located in Missouri, MO
Tree and Dove Ferol K. Sibley Warthen (American, 1890-1986) Color Woodblock Print Edition of 3 6.25 x 4.75 inches 13 x 11.5 inches with frame Signed Lower Right Titled Lower Left Born 1890, Died 1986...
Category

Mid-20th Century American Modern Animal Prints

Materials

Color

He Repeated the Letters of the Alphabet
By Corita Kent
Located in Missouri, MO
Sister Mary Corita Kent (American, 1918-1986) He Repeated the Letters of the Alphabet... Color Screenprint 22.5 x 38.75 inches Signed Lower Right Sister Mary Corita Kent, once the n...
Category

Mid-20th Century American Modern Abstract Prints

Materials

Color, Screen

Ornaments
Located in Missouri, MO
Ornaments, 1953 Ferol K. Sibley Warthen (American, 1890-1986) Color Woodblock Print 7 x 4.75 inches 16 x 13.75 inches with frame Signed and Dated Lower Right Titled Lower Left Born 1890, Died 1986...
Category

1950s American Modern Abstract Prints

Materials

Color

Angel
Located in Missouri, MO
Angel, 1952 Ferol K. Sibley Warthen (American, 1890-1986) Color Woodblock Print 6.5 x 5 inches 16 x 13.75 inches with frame Signed Lower Right Titled Lower Left Born 1890, Died 1986...
Category

1950s American Modern Abstract Prints

Materials

Color

You May Also Like

Monograph: Francis Bacon (hand signed and warmly inscribed by Francis Bacon)
By Francis Bacon
Located in New York, NY
Francis Bacon Francis Bacon (hand signed and warmly inscribed by Francis Bacon), 1975 Softcover catalogue with stiff wraps (hand signed and warmly inscribed by Francis Bacon) hand si...
Category

1970s Surrealist More Art

Materials

Paper, Ink, Mixed Media, Lithograph, Offset, Felt Pen

Icarus (from the Mythology portfolio)
By Salvador Dalí­
Located in New York, NY
Signed by the artist in pencil, and also dated in pencil in lower right corner. Numbered 108/150 in lower left corner. Published by Argillet, Paris. From Le Mythologie.
Category

1960s Surrealist Abstract Prints

Materials

Drypoint, Etching, Color

Richard Serra Drawings Zeichnungen 1969-1990 Book (Hand signed by Richard Serra)
By Richard Serra
Located in New York, NY
Richard Serra Drawings Zeichnungen 1969-1990 (Hand signed by Richard Serra), 1990 Softback monograph Book (Hand signed by Richard Serra) Hand signed by Richard Serra on the half titl...
Category

1990s Minimalist Abstract Prints

Materials

Mixed Media, Lithograph, Offset

Hand-Painted Paper Collage Attributed to Sven Markelius for Illums Bolighus
Located in Dallas, TX
From an important Dallas Texas estate. This artwork is an assemblage of countless hand cut and painted paper triangles arranged to create a captivating geometric depth of field. Th...
Category

Mid-20th Century Abstract Prints

Materials

Paper

Irwin Whitaker 'The Great Narrows' Enamel
Located in Dallas, TX
"The Great Narrows' by Irwin Whitaker - 1985, enamel on copper plate from the series 'Canyons, Arches & Gorges. Enamel measures 16.25 x 10.25, Frame measures 20.25 x 14.25. Excellent...
Category

1980s More Art

Materials

Copper, Enamel

ANUSZKIEWICZ, monograph (hand signed and inscribed by Richard Anuszkiewicz)
By Richard Anuszkiewicz
Located in New York, NY
Richard Anuszkiewicz ANUSZKIEWICZ by Karl Lunde (hand signed and inscribed by Richard Anuszkiewicz), 1977 Hardback monograph with dust jacket (hand signed and inscribed by Richard An...
Category

1970s Op Art Abstract Prints

Materials

Paper, Mixed Media, Lithograph, Offset, Ink, Board

Recently Viewed

View All