Knowra Alexander Calder Alexander Calder Alexander Calder (1898–1976) was an American sculptor who invented the mobile and made kinetic sculptures from balanced, moving forms. He also created monumental public artworks and circus figures from wire.
Mobile (sculpture) : A suspended sculpture whose parts move in response to air currents or mechanical forces. Calder’s mobiles made balanced, moving forms his defining sculptural invention.
Lobster Trap and Fish Tail : A 1939 hanging mobile by Calder, made of wire, wood, and painted metal. Its suspended forms demonstrate the delicate balance of his mature mobiles.
Calder's Animal Sketching : A 1926 book by Calder featuring line drawings of animals observed at the New York Zoo. The book’s economical line anticipates the open outlines of his wire sculptures.
Man-Eater with Pennants : A 1945 Calder sculpture made for the lobby of a New York City building. This commission shows his mobiles adapting to architecture and public interiors.
Marcel Breuer : A Hungarian-born architect and designer associated with modernist furniture and architecture. Breuer’s designs for Calder’s works show how sculpture entered modern architecture.
Stabile : A stationary abstract sculpture, often constructed from metal plates and rods. Calder coined this name for his monumental, nonmoving sculptures.
Universe (Calder) : A large 1934 Calder mobile in Chicago’s Adler Planetarium, with moving abstract forms. This early monumental mobile translates cosmic motion into hanging shapes.
Paris in the 1920s : A period when artists, writers, and performers gathered in Paris amid intense modernist experimentation. Calder developed his artistic practice among Paris’s avant-garde artists.
Calder Foundation : A nonprofit organization dedicated to preserving and documenting Alexander Calder’s work and legacy. The foundation supports research and stewardship of Calder’s extensive body of work.
Jean Tinguely : A Swiss sculptor known for kinetic machines that move, make noise, and often destroy themselves. Tinguely’s unruly machines offer a mechanical counterpoint to Calder’s airy mobiles.
Show all 28