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Alexander Calder (July 22 1898 – November 11
1976), also known as Sandy Calder, was an United
States|American Sculpture|sculptor and artist most
famous for inventing the mobile
(sculpture)|mobile. In addition to mobile and
stabile sculpture, Alexander Calder also created
paintings, lithography|lithographs, and tapestry,
and designed carpets.

==Biography==
Born in Lawton, Pennsylvania, Calder came from a
family of sculptors, with both his father
Alexander Stirling Calder and grandfather, the
Scotland|Scottish-born sculptor Alexander Milne
Calder, sharing the same name. His mother, Nanette
Lederer Calder was a painter.

Although his parents encouraged his creativity as
a child, they discouraged their children from
becoming artists, knowing that it was an uncertain
and financially difficult career. Calder initially
trained as a mechanical engineer, receiving a
degree from Stevens Institute of Technology in
1919. For the next several years he worked a
variety of engineering jobs, such as assistant to
a hydraulics engineer and engineer in a Canadian
logging camp, but he wasn't content in any of the
roles. In June 1922, Calder started work as a
fireman in the boiler room of the passenger ship
H. F. Alexander. While the ship sailed from San
Francisco to New York City|New York, Calder woke
early one morning and saw a sunrise with moon-set
which deeply impressed him with the wonders of the
universe, and set him on the path of becoming an
artist. As he describes in his autobiography;

:It was early one morning on a calm sea, off
Guatemala, when over  my couch — a coil of
rope — I saw the beginning of a  fiery red
sunrise on one side and the moon looking like a
silver coin on the other.



Having decided to become an artist, Calder moved
to New York and enrolled at the Art Students
League of New York|Art Students' League. Whilst a
student, Calder became fascinated with the Circus
(performing art)|circus, sketching a number of
studies on circus themes and sculpting a number of
wire frame circus animals and carnival performers.
Upon graduating, Calder moved to Paris to continue
his studies in art. He took his wire model circus
with him, and gave elaborately improvised shows
recreating the performance of a real circus. Soon,
his Cirque Calder became popular with the Parisian
avant-garde, and Calder was charging an entrance
fee to see his two hour show of a circus that he
could pack into suitcase.

In 1928 Calder had his first solo show at the
Weyhe Gallery in New York City|New York and he
spent much of the next decade crossing the
Atlantic Ocean|Atlantic to give shows in Europe
and America.

On one transatlantic steamer, he met his wife
Louisa James. They married in 1931.

Whilst in Paris, Calder met and became friends
with a number of avant-garde artists including
Joan Miró, Jean Arp and Marcel Duchamp. A visit
to Piet Mondrian's studio in 1930 "shocked" him
into embracing abstract art.



The Cirque Calder can be seen as the start of
Calder's interest in both wire modeling and
kinetic art with an eye to the engineering balance
of the sculptures. These were all the qualities
required to develop mobiles, the name Duchamp gave
to Calder's kinetic sculptures. He designed some
of the characters in the circus to perform
suspended from a thread. However, it was the
mixture of his experiments to develop purely
abstract sculpture following his visit with
Mondrian that lead to his first truly kinetic
sculptures which were manipulated by a means of
cranks and pulleys.

By the end of 1931 he had quickly moved on to more
delicate sculptures which derived their motion
from the air currents in the room, and true
mobiles were born. At much the same time, Calder
was also experimenting with self supporting,
static, abstract sculptures, dubbed "stabiles" by
Arp to differentiate them from mobiles.

Calder and Louisa returned to America in 1933 to
settle in a farmhouse they purchased in Roxbury,
Connecticut, where they raised a family (first
daughter, Sandra born 1935, second daughter, Mary,
in 1939). Calder continued to give Cirque Calder
performances, but also met Martha Graham and
designed stage sets for her ballets with Erik
Satie. 

During the World War II, Calder attempted to join
up as a marine, but was rejected. Instead, he
continued to sculpt, but a scarcity of metal lead
to him producing work in carved wood. After the
war, Calder had several major retrospective
exhibitions, including one in the Museum of Modern
Art, New York in 1943.

In the 1950s, Calder increasingly concentrated his
efforts on producing monumental sculptures.
Notable examples are .125 for JFK Airport in 1957,
and La Spirale for UNESCO in Paris 1958. Calder's
largest sculpture at 20.5 m high, was El Sol Rojo
constructed for the Olympic games in Mexico City.

In 1966 Calder published his Autobiography with
Pictures with the help of his son-in-law Jean
Davidson.

Calder died on November 11 1976, shortly following
the opening of another major retrospective show at
the Whitney Museum of American Art|Whitney Museum
New York.

:Reporter: How do you know when its time to stop
working?
:Calder: When it's suppertime.
::::- From a television interview

==Selected works==
*Dog (1909), folded brass sheet. Made as a present
for Calder's parents.
*The Flying Trapeze (1925), oil on canvas, 36 x 42
in.
*Elephant (c. 1928), wire and wood, 11 1/2 x 5 3/4
x 29.2in. A figure in the Cirque Calder
*Aztec Josephine Baker (c. 1929), wire, 53" x 10"
x 9". A performing figure in the Cirque Calder,
and a representation of Josephine Baker the
exuberant lead dancer from La Révue Nègre at the
Folies Bergère.
*Untitled (1931), wire, wood, and motor. One of
the first kinetic mobiles.
*Feathers (1931), wire, wood, and paint. First
true mobile, although designed to stand on a
desktop.
*Cone d'ebene (1933), ebony, metal bar and wire.
First suspended mobile.
*Form Against Yellow (1936), sheet metal, wire,
plywood, string, and paint. Wall supported mobile.
*Mercury Fountain (1937), mercury, resin.
*Devil Fish (1937), sheet metal, bolts, and paint.
First outdoor, garden stabile.
*1939 New York World's Fair (maquette) (1938),
sheet metal, wire, wood, string, and paint.
*Necklace (c. 1938), brass wire, glass, and mirror
*Sphere Pierced by Cylinders (1939), wire and
paint
http://www.calder.org/SETS_SUB/work/work_type_html
/stabile_html/work_frame_A00682.html the first an
many floor standing, life size stabiles (predating
Anthony Caro's plinthless sculptures by two
decades.)
*Lobster Trap and Fish Tail (1939), sheet metal,
wire, and paint. Suspended mobile, design for the
stairwell of the Museum of Modern Art, New York
*Black Beast (1940), sheet metal, bolts, and
paint. Freestanding plinthless stabile.
*S-Shaped Vine (1946), sheet metal, wire, and
paint. Suspended mobile.
*Sword Plant (1947) sheet metal, wire, and paint.
Stabile.
*Snow Flurry (1948), sheet metal, wire, and paint.
Suspended mobile.
*.125 (1957), steel plate, rods, and paint
*La Spirale (1958), steel plate, rod, and paint,
360" high. Public monumental mobile for Maison de
l'U.N.E.S.C.O., Paris.
*Teodelapio (1962), steel plate and paint,
monumental stabile, Spoleto Italy
*Man (1967) stainless steel plate, bolts, and
paint, 65' x 83' x 53', monumental stabile,
Montreal Canada
*La Grande vitesse (1969), steel plate, bolts, and
paint, 43' x 55' x 25', Grand_Rapids,_Michigan.
*Cheval Rouge (Red Horse), (1974), red painted
sheet metal, at the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture
Garden, Washington, D.C.
*The Red Feather, (1975), black and red painted
steel, 11' x 6'3" x 11'2", The Kentucky Center.
*Untitled (1976), aluminum honeycomb, tubing, and
paint, 358 1/2 x 912", National Gallery of Art
Washington.

==Bibliography==
*Alexander Calder: An Autobiography With Pictures,
HarperCollins, ISBN 0068532687

==External links==
Commonscat|Alexander Calder
*The official http://www.calder.org/ Calder
Foundation web site.
*Biography at
http://www.guggenheimcollection.org/site/artist_bi
o_26.html Guggenheim collection
*Biography from 
http://www.memagazine.org/backissues/december98/fe
atures/calder/calder.html Mechanical Engineering
Magazine December 1998