(after) Alexander Calder Art
American, b. 1898
Combining abstract surrealism and biomorphic imagery into a distinctive style, Calder has become one of the 20th Century’s most iconic and important artists. Besides sculptures, Calder was also prolific in other art forms. He produced jewelry, tapestry and stage designs, as well as drawings, oil paintings, water colors, etchings, lithographs and serigraphs. Born in Philadelphia in 1898
Alexander Calder (1898 – 1976) was a monumental artist. He invented the mobile, and airy, hanging structure connected by wires that are set in motion by the wind. These mobiles tremendously influenced the art world. Calder’s versions celebrated form and color, with simplicity and profundity. As a trained engineer, began to practice as a freelance artist after attending New York’s Art Students League. Calder was strongly inspired circus spectacle, and thus constructed entertaining mobiles often accompanied by music. Producing dynamic yet playful mobile sculptures, Calder dismissed the formal structures of art and redefined its infinite possibilities.(Biography provided by ArtWise)
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Artist: (after) Alexander Calder
lithograph
By (after) Alexander Calder
Located in Henderson, NV
Medium: lithograph. Printed in 1965 on laid paper and published by the Musee National d'Art Moderne of Paris for a rare catalogue. Size: 12 1/2 x 9 1/4 inches (320 x 234 mm). Not sig...
Category
1960s (after) Alexander Calder Art
Materials
Lithograph
Alexander Calder Circus Reproduction Lithograph of a Drawing
By (after) Alexander Calder
Located in Surfside, FL
(after) Alexander Calder
"Calder's Circus" offset lithograph on wove paper a reproduction lithograph after the drawings by the artist
Published by Art in America and Perls gallery in 1964 (from drawings done in the 1930's)
these range slightly in size but they are all about 13 X 17 inches (with minor variations in size as issued.) These have never been framed. The outer folio is not included just the one lithograph.
James Sweeny from the introduction “The fame of Calder’s circus spread quickly between the years 1927 and 1930. All the Paris art world came to know it. It brought him his first great personal success. But what was more important, the circus also provided the first steps in Calder’s development as an original sculptor”
Clive Gray wrote ”A visit to the studio of Alexander Calder led to the chance discovery of some hundred masterful circus drawings completed over thirty years ago. We publish, for the first time, a choice of sixteen from that group.” With signed introduction by Miro.
These whimsical drawings, done in the style of wire sculpture, include acrobats, clowns, jugglers, trapeeze artists, an elephant, dog and lion. they are great.
Alexander Calder is widely considered to be one of the most important American sculptors of the 20th century. He is best known for his colorful, whimsical abstract public sculptures and his innovative mobiles, kinetic sculptures powered by motors or air currents, which embraced chance in their aesthetic. Born into a family of accomplished artists, Calder's work first gained attention in Paris in the 1930s and was soon championed by the Museum of Modern Art in New York, resulting in a retrospective exhibition in 1943. Major retrospectives were also held at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum (1964) and the Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago (1974). Calder’s work is in many permanent collections, most notably in the Whitney Museum of American Art, but also the Guggenheim Museum; the Museum of Modern Art; the National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.; and the Centre Georges Pompidou. He produced many large public works, including .125 (at JFK Airport, 1957), Pittsburgh (Carnegie International prize winner 1958, Pittsburgh International Airport) Spirale (UNESCO in Paris, 1958), Flamingo and Universe (both in Chicago, 1974), and Mountains and Clouds (Hart Senate Office Building, Washington, D.C., 1976). Although primarily known for his sculpture, Calder was a prodigious artist with a restless creative spirit, whose diverse practice included painting and printmaking, miniatures (such as his famous Cirque Calder), children’s book illustrations, theater set design, jewelry design, tapestry and rug works, and political posters. Calder was honored by the US Postal Service with a set of five 32-cent stamps in 1998, and received the Presidential Medal of Freedom, posthumously in 1977, after refusing to receive it from Gerald Ford one year earlier in protest of the Vietnam War.
Calder moved to New York and enrolled at the Art Students League, studying briefly with Thomas Hart Benton, George Luks, Kenneth Hayes Miller, and John Sloan. While a student, he worked for the National Police Gazette where, in 1925, one of his assignments was sketching the Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus. Calder became fascinated with the action of the circus, a theme that would reappear in his later work.
In 1926, Calder moved to Paris, enrolled in the Académie de la Grande Chaumière, and established a studio at 22 rue Daguerre in the Montparnasse Quarter. In June 1929, while traveling by boat from Paris to New York, Calder met his future wife, Louisa James (1905-1996), grandniece of author Henry James and philosopher William James. They married in 1931. While in Paris, Calder met and became friends with a number of avant-garde artists, including Fernand Léger, Jean Arp, and Marcel Duchamp. Cirque Calder (on view at the Whitney Museum of American Art at present) became popular with the Parisian avant-garde. He also invented wire sculpture, or "drawing in space," and in 1929 he had his first solo show of these sculptures in Paris at Galerie Billiet. Hi! (Two Acrobats) in the collection of the Honolulu Museum of Art is an early example of the artist's wire sculpture. The painter Jules Pascin, a friend of Calder's from the cafes of Montparnasse, wrote the preface to the catalog. A visit to Piet Mondrian's studio in 1930, where he was impressed by the environment-as-installation, "shocked" him into fully embracing abstract art, toward which he had already been tending.
Dating from 1931, Calder’s sculptures of discrete movable parts powered by motors were christened “mobiles” by Marcel Duchamp, a French pun meaning both "motion" and "motive." At the same time, Calder was also experimenting with self-supporting, static, abstract sculptures, dubbed "stabiles" by Jean Arp in 1932 to differentiate them from mobiles.
Public commissions increasingly came his way in the 1960s. Notable examples are .125 for JFK Airport in 1957, Spirale for UNESCO in Paris 1958 and Trois disques, commissioned for Expo 67 in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. Calder's largest sculpture at 25.7 meters high was El Sol Rojo, constructed outside the Aztec Stadium for the 1968 Summer Olympics "Cultural Olympiad" events in Mexico City. Many of his public works were commissioned by renowned architects; I.M. Pei commissioned his La Grande Voile (1966), a 25-ton, 40-foot high stabile for the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
Part of Calder's repertoire includes pivotal stage sets for more than a dozen theatrical productions, including Nucléa, Horizon, and most notably, Martha Graham’s Panorama (1935), a production of the Erik Satie symphonic drama Socrate (1936), and later, Works in Progress (1968).
In addition to sculptures, Calder painted throughout his career, beginning in the early 1920s. He picked up his study of printmaking in 1925, and continued to produce illustrations for books and journals.As Calder’s professional reputation expanded in the late 1940s and 1950s, so did his production of prints. Masses of lithographs based on his gouache paintings hit the market, and deluxe editions of plays, poems, and short stories illustrated with fine art prints by Calder became available for sale.
One of Calder's most celebrated and unconventional undertakings was a commission from Dallas-based Braniff International Airways to paint a full-size Douglas DC-8-62 four-engined jet as a "flying canvas."
Calder created over 2,000 pieces of jewelry over the course of his career, many of them as gifts for friends and relatives. For his lifelong friend Joan Miró, he set a shard of a broken porcelain vessel in a brass ring. Peggy Guggenheim received enormous silver mobile earrings and later commissioned a hammered silver headboard...
Category
1930s American Modern (after) Alexander Calder Art
Materials
Lithograph
lithograph
By (after) Alexander Calder
Located in Henderson, NV
Medium: lithograph. Printed in 1966 for the art revue Derriere le Miroir (issue number 156) and published in Paris by the atelier Maeght. Size: 15 x 11 inches (378 x 277 mm). There i...
Category
1960s Abstract (after) Alexander Calder Art
Materials
Lithograph
lithograph
By (after) Alexander Calder
Located in Henderson, NV
Medium: lithograph. Printed in 1966 for the art revue Derriere le Miroir (issue number 156) and published in Paris by the atelier Maeght. Size: 15 x 11 inches (378 x 277 mm). There i...
Category
1960s Abstract (after) Alexander Calder Art
Materials
Lithograph
lithograph
By (after) Alexander Calder
Located in Henderson, NV
Medium: lithograph. Printed in 1966 for the art revue Derriere le Miroir (issue number 156) and published in Paris by the atelier Maeght. Size: 15 x 22 inches (377 x 556 mm). There i...
Category
1960s Abstract (after) Alexander Calder Art
Materials
Lithograph
lithograph
By (after) Alexander Calder
Located in Henderson, NV
Medium: lithograph. Printed in 1966 for the art revue Derriere le Miroir (issue number 156) and published in Paris by the atelier Maeght. Size: 15 x 22 inches (377 x 556 mm). There i...
Category
1960s Abstract (after) Alexander Calder Art
Materials
Lithograph
Alexander Calder Circus Reproduction Lithograph After a Drawing
By (after) Alexander Calder
Located in Surfside, FL
(after) Alexander Calder
"Calder's Circus" offset lithograph on wove paper after drawings by the artist
Published by Art in America and Perls gallery in 1964 (from drawings done in the 1930's)
these range slightly in size but they are all about 13 X 17 inches (with minor variations in size as issued.) These have never been framed. The outer folio is not included just the one lithograph.
James Sweeny from the introduction “The fame of Calder’s circus spread quickly between the years 1927 and 1930. All the Paris art world came to know it. It brought him his first great personal success. But what was more important, the circus also provided the first steps in Calder’s development as an original sculptor”
Clive Gray wrote ”A visit to the studio of Alexander Calder led to the chance discovery of some hundred masterful circus drawings completed over thirty years ago. We publish, for the first time, a choice of sixteen from that group.” With signed introduction by Miro.
These whimsical drawings, done in the style of wire sculpture, include acrobats, clowns, jugglers, trapeeze artists, an elephant, dog and lion. they are great.
Alexander Calder is widely considered to be one of the most important American sculptors of the 20th century. He is best known for his colorful, whimsical abstract public sculptures and his innovative mobiles, kinetic sculptures powered by motors or air currents, which embraced chance in their aesthetic. Born into a family of accomplished artists, Calder's work first gained attention in Paris in the 1930s and was soon championed by the Museum of Modern Art in New York, resulting in a retrospective exhibition in 1943. Major retrospectives were also held at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum (1964) and the Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago (1974). Calder’s work is in many permanent collections, most notably in the Whitney Museum of American Art, but also the Guggenheim Museum; the Museum of Modern Art; the National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.; and the Centre Georges Pompidou. He produced many large public works, including .125 (at JFK Airport, 1957), Pittsburgh (Carnegie International prize winner 1958, Pittsburgh International Airport) Spirale (UNESCO in Paris, 1958), Flamingo and Universe (both in Chicago, 1974), and Mountains and Clouds (Hart Senate Office Building, Washington, D.C., 1976). Although primarily known for his sculpture, Calder was a prodigious artist with a restless creative spirit, whose diverse practice included painting and printmaking, miniatures (such as his famous Cirque Calder), children’s book illustrations, theater set design, jewelry design, tapestry and rug works, and political posters. Calder was honored by the US Postal Service with a set of five 32-cent stamps in 1998, and received the Presidential Medal of Freedom, posthumously in 1977, after refusing to receive it from Gerald Ford one year earlier in protest of the Vietnam War.
Calder moved to New York and enrolled at the Art Students League, studying briefly with Thomas Hart Benton, George Luks, Kenneth Hayes Miller, and John Sloan. While a student, he worked for the National Police Gazette where, in 1925, one of his assignments was sketching the Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus. Calder became fascinated with the action of the circus, a theme that would reappear in his later work.
In 1926, Calder moved to Paris, enrolled in the Académie de la Grande Chaumière, and established a studio at 22 rue Daguerre in the Montparnasse Quarter. In June 1929, while traveling by boat from Paris to New York, Calder met his future wife, Louisa James (1905-1996), grandniece of author Henry James and philosopher William James. They married in 1931. While in Paris, Calder met and became friends with a number of avant-garde artists, including Fernand Léger, Jean Arp, and Marcel Duchamp. Cirque Calder (on view at the Whitney Museum of American Art at present) became popular with the Parisian avant-garde. He also invented wire sculpture, or "drawing in space," and in 1929 he had his first solo show of these sculptures in Paris at Galerie Billiet. Hi! (Two Acrobats) in the collection of the Honolulu Museum of Art is an early example of the artist's wire sculpture. The painter Jules Pascin, a friend of Calder's from the cafes of Montparnasse, wrote the preface to the catalog. A visit to Piet Mondrian's studio in 1930, where he was impressed by the environment-as-installation, "shocked" him into fully embracing abstract art, toward which he had already been tending.
Dating from 1931, Calder’s sculptures of discrete movable parts powered by motors were christened “mobiles” by Marcel Duchamp, a French pun meaning both "motion" and "motive." At the same time, Calder was also experimenting with self-supporting, static, abstract sculptures, dubbed "stabiles" by Jean Arp in 1932 to differentiate them from mobiles.
Public commissions increasingly came his way in the 1960s. Notable examples are .125 for JFK Airport in 1957, Spirale for UNESCO in Paris 1958 and Trois disques, commissioned for Expo 67 in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. Calder's largest sculpture at 25.7 meters high was El Sol Rojo, constructed outside the Aztec Stadium for the 1968 Summer Olympics "Cultural Olympiad" events in Mexico City. Many of his public works were commissioned by renowned architects; I.M. Pei commissioned his La Grande Voile (1966), a 25-ton, 40-foot high stabile for the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
Part of Calder's repertoire includes pivotal stage sets for more than a dozen theatrical productions, including Nucléa, Horizon, and most notably, Martha Graham’s Panorama (1935), a production of the Erik Satie symphonic drama Socrate (1936), and later, Works in Progress (1968).
In addition to sculptures, Calder painted throughout his career, beginning in the early 1920s. He picked up his study of printmaking in 1925, and continued to produce illustrations for books and journals.As Calder’s professional reputation expanded in the late 1940s and 1950s, so did his production of prints. Masses of lithographs based on his gouache paintings hit the market, and deluxe editions of plays, poems, and short stories illustrated with fine art prints by Calder became available for sale.
One of Calder's most celebrated and unconventional undertakings was a commission from Dallas-based Braniff International Airways to paint a full-size Douglas DC-8-62 four-engined jet as a "flying canvas."
Calder created over 2,000 pieces of jewelry over the course of his career, many of them as gifts for friends and relatives. For his lifelong friend Joan Miró, he set a shard of a broken porcelain vessel in a brass ring. Peggy Guggenheim received enormous silver mobile earrings and later commissioned a hammered silver headboard...
Category
1930s American Modern (after) Alexander Calder Art
Materials
Lithograph
Alexander Calder Circus Reproduction Lithograph After a Drawing
By (after) Alexander Calder
Located in Surfside, FL
(after) Alexander Calder
"Calder's Circus" offset lithograph on wove paper after drawings by the artist
Published by Art in America and Perls gallery in 1964 (from drawings done in the 1930's)
these range slightly in size but they are all about 13 X 17 inches (with minor variations in size as issued.) These have never been framed. The outer folio is not included just the one lithograph.
James Sweeny from the introduction “The fame of Calder’s circus spread quickly between the years 1927 and 1930. All the Paris art world came to know it. It brought him his first great personal success. But what was more important, the circus also provided the first steps in Calder’s development as an original sculptor”
Clive Gray wrote ”A visit to the studio of Alexander Calder led to the chance discovery of some hundred masterful circus drawings completed over thirty years ago. We publish, for the first time, a choice of sixteen from that group.” With signed introduction by Miro.
These whimsical drawings, done in the style of wire sculpture, include acrobats, clowns, jugglers, trapeeze artists, an elephant, dog and lion. they are great.
Alexander Calder is widely considered to be one of the most important American sculptors of the 20th century. He is best known for his colorful, whimsical abstract public sculptures and his innovative mobiles, kinetic sculptures powered by motors or air currents, which embraced chance in their aesthetic. Born into a family of accomplished artists, Calder's work first gained attention in Paris in the 1930s and was soon championed by the Museum of Modern Art in New York, resulting in a retrospective exhibition in 1943. Major retrospectives were also held at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum (1964) and the Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago (1974). Calder’s work is in many permanent collections, most notably in the Whitney Museum of American Art, but also the Guggenheim Museum; the Museum of Modern Art; the National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.; and the Centre Georges Pompidou. He produced many large public works, including .125 (at JFK Airport, 1957), Pittsburgh (Carnegie International prize winner 1958, Pittsburgh International Airport) Spirale (UNESCO in Paris, 1958), Flamingo and Universe (both in Chicago, 1974), and Mountains and Clouds (Hart Senate Office Building, Washington, D.C., 1976). Although primarily known for his sculpture, Calder was a prodigious artist with a restless creative spirit, whose diverse practice included painting and printmaking, miniatures (such as his famous Cirque Calder), children’s book illustrations, theater set design, jewelry design, tapestry and rug works, and political posters. Calder was honored by the US Postal Service with a set of five 32-cent stamps in 1998, and received the Presidential Medal of Freedom, posthumously in 1977, after refusing to receive it from Gerald Ford one year earlier in protest of the Vietnam War.
Calder moved to New York and enrolled at the Art Students League, studying briefly with Thomas Hart Benton, George Luks, Kenneth Hayes Miller, and John Sloan. While a student, he worked for the National Police Gazette where, in 1925, one of his assignments was sketching the Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus. Calder became fascinated with the action of the circus, a theme that would reappear in his later work.
In 1926, Calder moved to Paris, enrolled in the Académie de la Grande Chaumière, and established a studio at 22 rue Daguerre in the Montparnasse Quarter. In June 1929, while traveling by boat from Paris to New York, Calder met his future wife, Louisa James (1905-1996), grandniece of author Henry James and philosopher William James. They married in 1931. While in Paris, Calder met and became friends with a number of avant-garde artists, including Fernand Léger, Jean Arp, and Marcel Duchamp. Cirque Calder (on view at the Whitney Museum of American Art at present) became popular with the Parisian avant-garde. He also invented wire sculpture, or "drawing in space," and in 1929 he had his first solo show of these sculptures in Paris at Galerie Billiet. Hi! (Two Acrobats) in the collection of the Honolulu Museum of Art is an early example of the artist's wire sculpture. The painter Jules Pascin, a friend of Calder's from the cafes of Montparnasse, wrote the preface to the catalog. A visit to Piet Mondrian's studio in 1930, where he was impressed by the environment-as-installation, "shocked" him into fully embracing abstract art, toward which he had already been tending.
Dating from 1931, Calder’s sculptures of discrete movable parts powered by motors were christened “mobiles” by Marcel Duchamp, a French pun meaning both "motion" and "motive." At the same time, Calder was also experimenting with self-supporting, static, abstract sculptures, dubbed "stabiles" by Jean Arp in 1932 to differentiate them from mobiles.
Public commissions increasingly came his way in the 1960s. Notable examples are .125 for JFK Airport in 1957, Spirale for UNESCO in Paris 1958 and Trois disques, commissioned for Expo 67 in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. Calder's largest sculpture at 25.7 meters high was El Sol Rojo, constructed outside the Aztec Stadium for the 1968 Summer Olympics "Cultural Olympiad" events in Mexico City. Many of his public works were commissioned by renowned architects; I.M. Pei commissioned his La Grande Voile (1966), a 25-ton, 40-foot high stabile for the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
Part of Calder's repertoire includes pivotal stage sets for more than a dozen theatrical productions, including Nucléa, Horizon, and most notably, Martha Graham’s Panorama (1935), a production of the Erik Satie symphonic drama Socrate (1936), and later, Works in Progress (1968).
In addition to sculptures, Calder painted throughout his career, beginning in the early 1920s. He picked up his study of printmaking in 1925, and continued to produce illustrations for books and journals.As Calder’s professional reputation expanded in the late 1940s and 1950s, so did his production of prints. Masses of lithographs based on his gouache paintings hit the market, and deluxe editions of plays, poems, and short stories illustrated with fine art prints by Calder became available for sale.
One of Calder's most celebrated and unconventional undertakings was a commission from Dallas-based Braniff International Airways to paint a full-size Douglas DC-8-62 four-engined jet as a "flying canvas."
Calder created over 2,000 pieces of jewelry over the course of his career, many of them as gifts for friends and relatives. For his lifelong friend Joan Miró, he set a shard of a broken porcelain vessel in a brass ring. Peggy Guggenheim received enormous silver mobile earrings and later commissioned a hammered silver headboard...
Category
1930s American Modern (after) Alexander Calder Art
Materials
Lithograph
Alexander Calder Circus Reproduction Lithograph After a Drawing
By (after) Alexander Calder
Located in Surfside, FL
(after) Alexander Calder
"Calder's Circus" offset lithograph on wove paper after drawings by the artist
Published by Art in America and Perls gallery in 1964 (from drawings done in the 1930's)
these range slightly in size but they are all about 13 X 17 inches (with minor variations in size as issued.) These have never been framed. The outer folio is not included just the one lithograph.
James Sweeny from the introduction “The fame of Calder’s circus spread quickly between the years 1927 and 1930. All the Paris art world came to know it. It brought him his first great personal success. But what was more important, the circus also provided the first steps in Calder’s development as an original sculptor”
Clive Gray wrote ”A visit to the studio of Alexander Calder led to the chance discovery of some hundred masterful circus drawings completed over thirty years ago. We publish, for the first time, a choice of sixteen from that group.” With signed introduction by Miro.
These whimsical drawings, done in the style of wire sculpture, include acrobats, clowns, jugglers, trapeeze artists, an elephant, dog and lion. they are great.
Alexander Calder is widely considered to be one of the most important American sculptors of the 20th century. He is best known for his colorful, whimsical abstract public sculptures and his innovative mobiles, kinetic sculptures powered by motors or air currents, which embraced chance in their aesthetic. Born into a family of accomplished artists, Calder's work first gained attention in Paris in the 1930s and was soon championed by the Museum of Modern Art in New York, resulting in a retrospective exhibition in 1943. Major retrospectives were also held at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum (1964) and the Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago (1974). Calder’s work is in many permanent collections, most notably in the Whitney Museum of American Art, but also the Guggenheim Museum; the Museum of Modern Art; the National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.; and the Centre Georges Pompidou. He produced many large public works, including .125 (at JFK Airport, 1957), Pittsburgh (Carnegie International prize winner 1958, Pittsburgh International Airport) Spirale (UNESCO in Paris, 1958), Flamingo and Universe (both in Chicago, 1974), and Mountains and Clouds (Hart Senate Office Building, Washington, D.C., 1976). Although primarily known for his sculpture, Calder was a prodigious artist with a restless creative spirit, whose diverse practice included painting and printmaking, miniatures (such as his famous Cirque Calder), children’s book illustrations, theater set design, jewelry design, tapestry and rug works, and political posters. Calder was honored by the US Postal Service with a set of five 32-cent stamps in 1998, and received the Presidential Medal of Freedom, posthumously in 1977, after refusing to receive it from Gerald Ford one year earlier in protest of the Vietnam War.
Calder moved to New York and enrolled at the Art Students League, studying briefly with Thomas Hart Benton, George Luks, Kenneth Hayes Miller, and John Sloan. While a student, he worked for the National Police Gazette where, in 1925, one of his assignments was sketching the Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus. Calder became fascinated with the action of the circus, a theme that would reappear in his later work.
In 1926, Calder moved to Paris, enrolled in the Académie de la Grande Chaumière, and established a studio at 22 rue Daguerre in the Montparnasse Quarter. In June 1929, while traveling by boat from Paris to New York, Calder met his future wife, Louisa James (1905-1996), grandniece of author Henry James and philosopher William James. They married in 1931. While in Paris, Calder met and became friends with a number of avant-garde artists, including Fernand Léger, Jean Arp, and Marcel Duchamp. Cirque Calder (on view at the Whitney Museum of American Art at present) became popular with the Parisian avant-garde. He also invented wire sculpture, or "drawing in space," and in 1929 he had his first solo show of these sculptures in Paris at Galerie Billiet. Hi! (Two Acrobats) in the collection of the Honolulu Museum of Art is an early example of the artist's wire sculpture. The painter Jules Pascin, a friend of Calder's from the cafes of Montparnasse, wrote the preface to the catalog. A visit to Piet Mondrian's studio in 1930, where he was impressed by the environment-as-installation, "shocked" him into fully embracing abstract art, toward which he had already been tending.
Dating from 1931, Calder’s sculptures of discrete movable parts powered by motors were christened “mobiles” by Marcel Duchamp, a French pun meaning both "motion" and "motive." At the same time, Calder was also experimenting with self-supporting, static, abstract sculptures, dubbed "stabiles" by Jean Arp in 1932 to differentiate them from mobiles.
Public commissions increasingly came his way in the 1960s. Notable examples are .125 for JFK Airport in 1957, Spirale for UNESCO in Paris 1958 and Trois disques, commissioned for Expo 67 in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. Calder's largest sculpture at 25.7 meters high was El Sol Rojo, constructed outside the Aztec Stadium for the 1968 Summer Olympics "Cultural Olympiad" events in Mexico City. Many of his public works were commissioned by renowned architects; I.M. Pei commissioned his La Grande Voile (1966), a 25-ton, 40-foot high stabile for the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
Part of Calder's repertoire includes pivotal stage sets for more than a dozen theatrical productions, including Nucléa, Horizon, and most notably, Martha Graham’s Panorama (1935), a production of the Erik Satie symphonic drama Socrate (1936), and later, Works in Progress (1968).
In addition to sculptures, Calder painted throughout his career, beginning in the early 1920s. He picked up his study of printmaking in 1925, and continued to produce illustrations for books and journals.As Calder’s professional reputation expanded in the late 1940s and 1950s, so did his production of prints. Masses of lithographs based on his gouache paintings hit the market, and deluxe editions of plays, poems, and short stories illustrated with fine art prints by Calder became available for sale.
One of Calder's most celebrated and unconventional undertakings was a commission from Dallas-based Braniff International Airways to paint a full-size Douglas DC-8-62 four-engined jet as a "flying canvas."
Calder created over 2,000 pieces of jewelry over the course of his career, many of them as gifts for friends and relatives. For his lifelong friend Joan Miró, he set a shard of a broken porcelain vessel in a brass ring. Peggy Guggenheim received enormous silver mobile earrings and later commissioned a hammered silver headboard...
Category
1930s American Modern (after) Alexander Calder Art
Materials
Lithograph
Vintage 1970s Alexander Calder poster (Calder prints)
By (after) Alexander Calder
Located in NEW YORK, NY
Alexander Calder 'La Grenouille et Cie':
Vintage original 1971 poster for the exhibition Pace Columbus (Ohio) featuring a printed Calder signature.
Medium: Offset lithograph.
Dimensions: 25 x 32 inches.
An original 1st printing in very good vintage condition.
Plate signed on the lower right from an edition of unknown.
This is an original 1970s poster and not a recent reproduction of any kind.
Alexander Calder changed the course of modern art with his three-dimensional kinetic sculptures, which Marcel Duchamp named “mobiles.” Resonating with tenets of Futurism, Constructivism, and early non-objective painting, Calder’s mobiles consist of boldly colored abstract shapes, which are made from industrial materials and hang in lyrical balance. Calder was an international phenomenon during his lifetime. He won the grand prize for sculpture at the 1952 Venice Biennale, where he represented the United States. He earned the French Legion of Honor and the American Presidential Medal of Freedom, among other honors. Calder has been the subject of solo exhibitions at the Museum of Modern Art, the Rijksmuseum, the Louisiana Museum of Modern Art, and the Museo Reina Sofía. His work regularly sells for eight figures on the secondary market. Though Calder is best known for his mobiles, his diverse practice also encompassed standing sculpture, painting, set and costume design, large-scale public installation, and jewelry-making.
Related Categories
Calder prints. Calder Mid Century Modern. 60s. Alexander Calder and Contemporary Art. Calder figurative. Vintage Calder.
Category
1970s Contemporary (after) Alexander Calder Art
Materials
Lithograph, Offset
1970's Alexander Calder lithographic cover (from Derrière le miroir)
By (after) Alexander Calder
Located in NEW YORK, NY
Alexander Calder Lithographic cover c. 1975 from Derrière le miroir:
Lithographic cover in colors; 11 x 15 inches.
Very good overall vintage condition.
Unsigned from an edition of u...
Category
1970s Contemporary (after) Alexander Calder Art
Materials
Lithograph
1960's Alexander Calder lithographic cover (from Derrière le miroir)
By (after) Alexander Calder
Located in NEW YORK, NY
Alexander Calder Lithographic cover c. 1963 from Derrière le miroir:
Lithographic cover page in colors; 11 x 15 inches.
Very good overall vintage condition.
Unsigned from an edition...
Category
1960s Contemporary (after) Alexander Calder Art
Materials
Lithograph
Crags and Critters - Lithograph poster
By (after) Alexander Calder
Located in Paris, IDF
Alexander CALDER (after)
Crags and Critters, 1975
Lithograph poster
Made for the exhibition of Alexander Calder at Maeght Gallery
Printer : Arte Paris
Editor : Maeght
69 x 48.8 cm (...
Category
1970s Abstract Geometric (after) Alexander Calder Art
Materials
Lithograph
Black Tree with Red Sun - Lithograph poster - Maeght, 1976-77
By (after) Alexander Calder
Located in Paris, IDF
Alexander CALDER (after)
Black Tree with Red Sun, 1976-77
Lithograph poster
Made for the exhibition of Alexander Calder at Maeght Gallery in 1976-77
Printer : Arte Paris
Editor : Ma...
Category
1970s Abstract Geometric (after) Alexander Calder Art
Materials
Lithograph
Tree with Blue and Red Fruits - Lithograph - Maeght 1971
By (after) Alexander Calder
Located in Paris, IDF
Alexander CALDER (after)
Tree with Blue and Red Fruits
Lithograph poster
Printed signature in the plate
80 x 50 cm (c. 32 x 20 in)
INFORMATION : Lithograph created for the Calder e...
Category
1970s American Modern (after) Alexander Calder Art
Materials
Lithograph
Gouaches Totems - Lithograph poster
By (after) Alexander Calder
Located in Paris, IDF
Alexander CALDER (after)
Gouaches Totems, 1966
Lithograph poster
Made for the exhibition of Alexander Calder at Maeght Gallery
Printer : Arte Paris
Editor : Maeght
75.6 x 53.6 cm (c...
Category
1970s Abstract Geometric (after) Alexander Calder Art
Materials
Lithograph
Black Shadow (Stabiles sculptures) - Lithograph poster - Maeght 1969
By (after) Alexander Calder
Located in Paris, IDF
Alexander CALDER (after)
Black Shadow, 1969
Lithograph poster
Made for the exhibition of Alexander Calder at Maeght Fondation in 1969
Printer : Arte Paris
Editor : Maeght
70 x 49.8 ...
Category
1960s Abstract Geometric (after) Alexander Calder Art
Materials
Lithograph
Calder Stabiles
By (after) Alexander Calder
Located in Missouri, MO
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 ...
Category
20th Century Surrealist (after) Alexander Calder Art
Materials
Color
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Previously Available Items
lithograph
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lithograph
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James Sweeny from the introduction “The fame of Calder’s circus spread quickly between the years 1927 and 1930. All the Paris art world came to know it. It brought him his first great personal success. But what was more important, the circus also provided the first steps in Calder’s development as an original sculptor”
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these range slightly in size but they are all about 13 X 17 inches (with minor variations in size as issued.) These have never been framed. The outer folio is not included just the one lithograph.
James Sweeny from the introduction “The fame of Calder’s circus spread quickly between the years 1927 and 1930. All the Paris art world came to know it. It brought him his first great personal success. But what was more important, the circus also provided the first steps in Calder’s development as an original sculptor”
Clive Gray wrote ”A visit to the studio of Alexander Calder led to the chance discovery of some hundred masterful circus drawings...
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(after) Alexander Calder art for sale on 1stDibs.
Find a wide variety of authentic (after) Alexander Calder art available for sale on 1stDibs. If you’re browsing the collection of art to introduce a pop of color in a neutral corner of your living room or bedroom, you can find work that includes elements of orange, pink, red and other colors. You can also browse by medium to find art by (after) Alexander Calder in lithograph, offset print and more. Much of the original work by this artist or collective was created during the 20th century and is mostly associated with the modern style. Not every interior allows for large (after) Alexander Calder art, so small editions measuring 10 inches across are available. (after) Alexander Calder art prices can differ depending upon medium, time period and other attributes. On 1stDibs, the price for these items starts at $125 and tops out at $1,200, while the average work can sell for $326.
Artists Similar to (after) Alexander Calder
Questions About (after) Alexander Calder Art
- 1stDibs ExpertOctober 15, 2024Most artists consider Alexander Calder to be a Kinetic artist rather than a Surrealist. The American sculptor is known as the father of the mobile, a moving artwork composed of delicately balanced sculptural forms usually suspended from the ceiling. Calder also pioneered a new art form with wire sculptures, which he described as “drawings in space.” Like his famous mobiles, the wire sculptures were suspended so that they turned with any air movement, presenting different forms when viewed from different angles. Explore a diverse assortment of Alexander Calder art on 1stDibs.
- 1stDibs ExpertAugust 15, 2024Alexander Calder was famous for his work as an artist. The American sculptor is known as the father of the mobile, a moving artwork composed of delicately balanced sculptural forms suspended from the ceiling. He also created large-scale sculptures that frequently involved kinetic elements. Some of his best-known works include Mobile (Arc of Petals), Cirque Calder, Josephine Baker (III), Fish and A Universe. On 1stDibs, explore a selection of Alexander Calder art.
- Where is Alexander Calder’s art?1 Answer1stDibs ExpertApril 5, 2022Alexander Calder’s artwork has found its home in many museums and art galleries around the world, including the Museum of Modern Art and the Guggenheim Museum. Shop a selection of Alexander Calder’s pieces from some of the world’s top art dealers on 1stDibs.
- 1stDibs ExpertApril 5, 2022The American sculptor Alexander Calder invented the mobile, a moving artwork composed of delicately balanced sculptural forms suspended from the ceiling. His mobiles were an innovative feat and initially used motors for movement, which he later abandoned for air currents alone. Calder was also a pioneer of wire sculptures. Shop a selection of Alexander Calder pieces from some of the world’s top art dealers on 1stDibs.
- 1stDibs ExpertOctober 12, 2021The 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. On 1stDibs, find a variety of vintage Alexander Calder drawings and other sculptures.
- 1stDibs ExpertMay 3, 2024Alexander Calder mostly made sculptures, although he also worked in printmaking, painting, performance and other media. He is known as the father of the mobile, a moving artwork composed of delicately balanced sculptural forms suspended from the ceiling. Some of his most famous works include Cirque Calder, A Universe, Josephine Baker (III), Mobile (Arc of Petals), Devil Fish, Romulus and Remus and Fish. On 1stDibs, find a variety of Alexander Calder art.
- 1stDibs ExpertApril 5, 2022American artist Alexander Calder is best known for his work in sculpture, particularly his monumental sculptures and innovative ‘mobiles’ in the tradition of kinetic art. Shop a collection of authentic Alexander Calder pieces from some of the world’s top art dealers on 1stDibs.
- 1stDibs ExpertApril 5, 2022Alexander Calder's mobiles were revolutionary because he largely pioneered the art form of creating hanging sculptures that were able to move freely in response to airflow. Calder was a prolific artist believed to have produced more than 22,000 works during his life. Shop a variety of Alexander Calder art on 1stDibs.
- 1stDibs ExpertMarch 22, 2022Alexander Calder is best known for his sculptures. He produced large, playful freestanding and hanging works in vibrant colors. Examples include Mobile-Stabile, Lobster Trap and Fish Tail and Flying Dragon. On 1stDibs, you can shop a selection of Alexander Calder art.
- 1stDibs ExpertApril 3, 2024Alexander Calder invented the mobile, a moving artwork composed of delicately balanced sculptural forms suspended from the ceiling. The revered American sculptor's mobiles were an innovative feat and initially used motors for movement, which he later abandoned for air currents alone. Calder was also a pioneer of wire sculptures. (He was a celebrated modernist printmaker, too, and while jewelry was a secondary métier for him, interest in his wearable art has accelerated in recent years.)
For Calder, the fascinating moment of artistic alchemy comes sometime between his representational canvases of the late 1920s and 1931, the year of his first show of abstract sculpture. Moving to Paris helped spur his creativity, as it did for so many artists and writers. The moment Calder arrived, he began working on one of his most seminal pieces, Cirque Calder (1931), his delightful distillation of the circus into what are essentially three-dimensional line drawings made with wire.
Shop authentic Alexander Calder prints, sculptures and other art from some of the world’s top art dealers on 1stDibs. - 1stDibs ExpertMay 3, 2024The art movement that Alexander Calder was connected to was kinetic art. The term refers to art that moves or has the appearance of movement. With their ability to sway and turn once suspended, Calder's mobiles are often referenced as examples of kinetic art. On 1stDibs, find a selection of Alexander Calder art.
- 1stDibs ExpertApril 16, 2024Alexander Calder used many of the elements of art when producing his works. The American sculptor is known as the father of the mobile, a moving artwork composed of delicately balanced sculptural forms suspended from the ceiling. These kinetic pieces use color, shape and space to convey a sense of unity, and the form of the art allows it to interact with its environment. Find a variety of Alexander Calder art on 1stDibs.
- 1stDibs ExpertOctober 24, 2024How much an Alexander Calder mobile is worth depends on its historical significance, size, condition and other factors. In 2012, his 1945 piece Lily of Force sold for $18.5 million at auction in New York City. The American sculptor is known as the father of the mobile, a moving artwork composed of delicately balanced sculptural forms suspended from the ceiling. 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. If you're in possession of a Calder mobile, a certified appraiser or knowledgeable art dealer can help you determine how much it may be worth. On 1stDibs, explore a range of Alexander Calder art.
- 1stDibs ExpertApril 5, 2022There are several interpretations of how to describe the characteristics of Alexander Calder’s sculptures. Some say they are abstract, with life-like elements, others say they are flat, simplified shapes that intersect at opposing angles. See the magic for yourself — shop a selection of Alexander Calder pieces from some of the world’s top art dealers on 1stDibs.
- 1stDibs ExpertApril 5, 2022The term ‘mobile’, which was coined by Marcel Duchamp, was used to describe Alexander Calder’s work, as Calder’s sculptures often moved with the help of motors or wind. ‘Mobiles’ was a French pun which meant ‘motion’. On 1stDibs, find a variety of original artwork from Alexander Calder.
- 1stDibs ExpertMarch 13, 2024Alexander Calder produced more than 22,000 works of art during his lifetime. The prolific artist made paintings, drawings, prints, tapestries, stage sets, jewelry and other types of art. Some of his most famous pieces include Cirque Calder, Josephine Baker (III), A Universe, Mobile (Arc of Petals) and Devil Fish. Shop a diverse assortment of Alexander Calder art on 1stDibs.
- 1stDibs ExpertApril 5, 2022Like all meaningful works of art, the mood that best describes American artist Alexander Calder’s sculptures is subject to interpretation. Common descriptors for his abstract work include “playful” or “whimsical.” Calder is best known as the father of the mobile, a moving artwork composed of delicately balanced sculptural forms suspended from the ceiling. Shop a selection of Alexander Calder pieces from some of the world’s top art dealers on 1stDibs.
- What is a Calder mobile?1 Answer1stDibs ExpertNovember 2, 2021A “Calder mobile” refers to a moving artwork created by American sculptor Alexander Calder composed of delicately balanced sculptural forms suspended from the ceiling. Calder 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. Find a collection of original Alexander Calder art on 1stDibs.
- How did Calder become an artist?1 Answer1stDibs ExpertMarch 13, 2024The story of how Calder became an artist begins with his parents. Both artists themselves, they did not want him to suffer the hardships of trying to make a living in art, so they encouraged the young Alexander Calder to study mechanical engineering at the Stevens Institute of Technology in Hoboken, New Jersey. He subsequently 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 applied his engineering background to his artwork, such as his understanding of gears and moving parts for kinetic sculptures like Cirque Calder (1931) and free-standing abstract sculptures he called “stabiles.” Explore a selection of Alexander Calder art on 1stDibs.
- What is Alexander McQueen?1 Answer1stDibs ExpertMarch 22, 2022Alexander McQueen is a luxury fashion brand founded by a designer by the same name. The fashion house designs haute couture and prêt-à-porter clothing for men and women, as well as shoes, handbags, accessories and jewelry. Shop a large selection of Alexander McQueen on 1stDibs.