Alexander Calder

Born in 1898, Alexander Calder was an American modernist sculptor, reknowned for his mobiles and monumental public installations. The artist’s diverse practice also encompassed painting, set and costume design, and jewellery.

A pioneer of kinetic art, Calder’s work focuses on movement and demonstrates a unique playfulness, which can be seen in both his celebrated sculptures and prints.

Alexander Calder’s Art Education and Early Career

Alexander Calder initially studied mechanical engineering, before turning his attention to art. Calder enrolled at the Art Students League in New York, moving to Paris in 1926 to study at the Académie de la Grande Chaumière. In 1930, a visit to Piet Mondrian’s studio inspired him to pursue abstract modern sculpture.

Breaking from a tradition of monolithic, dense sculptural forms, the artist was instead fascinated by lightness and space within artworks. Calder’s wire sculptures were christened ‘mobiles’ by Marcel Duchamp in 1931. As well as a kinetic sculpture artist, however, Calder is also known for his inventive and dynamic prints.

Calder’s print work

Alexander Calder worked as an illustrator in the 1920s and maintained a practice of drawing and painting throughout his career. As the artist’s sculpture moved into the realm of abstraction in the early 1930s, so did his prints, inspired by contemporaries such as Joan Miró.

The influence of Miró is clear in works such as Aide Espagnole aux Réfugiés (1973), a lithograph made in aid of refugees fleeing the Spanish Civil War, which pairs large red, black and blue dots with geometric lines creating a sense of freedom and movement.

Alexander Calder’s Notable Awards, Collections and Exhibitions

In 1937, Calder’s La Fontaine de Mercure sculpture was exhibited at the illustrious Paris Exposition. Major retrospectives of his work have been held at the Guggenheim Museum, New York in 1964, the Fondation Maeght in Saint-Paul-de-Vence in 1969, and the Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago in 1974.

You can find Alexander Calder's art for sale in auction houses worldwide, and he can be found in many permanent collections across the globe. These collections include the Whitney Museum, Guggenheim, Museum of Modern Art in New York and the Centres Georges Pompidou, Paris. The artist was awarded the Grand Prix de la Biennale de Venise in 1952.

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