Alexander calder biography artist

Postal Service, Calder created larger works for the exhibition that could be easily dismantled, mailed overseas, and re-assembled upon arrival fig. His association with Galerie Maeght lasted twenty-six years, until his death in After his New York dealer Curt Valentin died unexpectedly inCalder selected Perls Galleries in New York as his new American dealer, and this alliance also lasted until the end of his life.

Calder concentrated his efforts primarily on large-scale commissioned works in his later years. Some of these major monumental sculpture commissions include. A retrospective of his work opened at the Guggenheim Museum in New York in fig. InCalder, together with his son-in-law Jean Davidson, published a well-received autobiography.

Just a few weeks later, Calder died at the age of seventy-eight, ending the most prolific and innovative artistic career of the twentieth century. Site Search Enter a search term. Calder soon began to sculpt from wire many portraits of his friends and public figures of the day fig. Kennedy International AirportNew York, Mixed media: wire, wood, metal, cloth, yarn, paper, cardboard, leather, string, rubber tubing, corks, buttons, rhinestones, pipe cleaners, bottle caps - Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, New York.

Calder's illustrations for the National Police Gazette were often made of single, continuous lines. He learned this technique in mechanical drawing classes at the Art Students League. InCalder was the first to extend this line drawing approach into three dimensions. He soon began creating figurative and portrait sculptures using only wire to "draw in space.

These artworks were important in furthering both his career-long use of wire and his interest in open-space sculpture. In the early s Calder's desire to create abstract paintings that moved through space led to motorized works such as A Universe, in which the two spherical shapes traveled at different rates during a minute cycle. From the s on, Calder created non-mechanized alexander calder biography artist, standing, and wall-mounted mobiles, whose movement was driven by random air currents.

Early versions often used scavenged bits of glass or pottery, while later ones were generally comprised entirely of flat metal shapes painted black, white, or solid, vibrant colors. Calder succeeded in integrating natural movement into sculpture by assembling elements that balance themselves naturally by weight, surface area, and length of wire "arm.

Though many other artists have since created works based on his principles, even now, decades later, Calder is still the undisputed master of this form of sculpture. Painted and unpainted sheet aluminum, iron wire, and copper rivets - Peggy Guggenheim Collection, Venice, Italy. Counterpoint to his mobiles, Calder created many stabiles, composed of intersecting shaped planes of bolted sheet metal, often painted a single color.

Devil Fish was the first large-scale bolted stabile that Calder enlarged from a maquette. By forming combinations of curved biomorphic shapes, Calder creates a swirling sense of motion, even in a static sculpture such as this. Later stabiles combined both organic and geometric forms. During his later years Calder produced many monumental stabiles and mobiles as public works for sites worldwide.

Trois disques was commissioned for Montreal's Expo ' Works such as Trois disques contributed to the proliferation of public art during the second half of the 20 th century. Such grand stabiles are dynamic works, with their arches, points, and flowing forms reaching out in multiple directions. Alexander Calder was born into a long line of sculptors, being part of the fourth generation to take up the art form.

Constructing objects from a very young age, his first known art tool was a pair of pliers. At eight, Calder was creating jewelry for his sister's dolls from beads and copper wire. Over the next few years, as his family moved to Pasadena, Philadelphia, New York, and San Francisco, he crafted small animal figures and game boards from scavenged wood and brass, and inhe made his first kinetic sculpture of brass sheet.

Once there, he began making the moving figures that would become Cirque Caldera unique body of Performance art. He also began using wire to produce linear portraits and figurative sculptures. He became popular in the art world for his circus performances during which he set in motion the many different characters and animals he had created. In the late s, Calder began producing jewelry with the same wire he used in his alexander calder biography artist.

He continued jewelry work throughout his career, primarily making necklaces, rings, brooches, and bracelets for friends. Gallery [ edit ]. The Four ElementsModerna Museetinstallation at the museum entrance. Le tamanoir The AnteaterRotterdamNetherlands. Feuille d'arbre Tree leafTel AvivIsrael. Flying DragonArt Institute of Chicago. Selected works [ edit ].

Dogfolded brass sheet, made as a present for Calder's parents The Flying Trapezeoil on canvas, 36 x 42 in. Elephant c. Aztec Josephine Bakerwire, 53" x 10" x 9". It stands 40 feet 12 m tall, on the campus of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in CambridgeMassachusetts. Moved for conservation and donated to Detroit Institute of Artscurrently on display at exterior of museum at John R.

Notes [ edit ]. Calder Foundation. Archived from the original on February 27, Retrieved July 22, Archived from the original on September 25, Retrieved December 19, Archived from the original on February 18, April 25, Archived from the original on June 7, Retrieved June 15, November 13, Archived from the original on December 6, Middlebury, VT: Paul S.

Eriksson, Archived from the original on July 24, Retrieved July 21, Retrieved February 5, Eriksson,p. Archived from the original on May 26, Schoonmaker, David ed. American Scientist. ISSN OCLC Seymour I Toll. Archived PDF from the original on March 4, Retrieved March 20, Archived from the original on July 25, Retrieved July 31, The New York Times.

Archived from the original on March 3, Retrieved December 20, Archived from the original on July 10, Retrieved July 10, Gemeentemuseum Den Haag. Archived from the original on June 18, Retrieved April 8, July 7, National Endowment for the Arts. Archived from the original on October 15, Retrieved June 20, International Foundation for Art Research.

Archived from the original on September 28, Retrieved July 27, Archived from the original on March 30, Retrieved June 3, Alexander Calder Foundation. Retrieved October 11, Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago. Retrieved August 7, Archived from the original on August 6, Braniff Airways: Flying Colors. Images of Modern America. Arcadia Publishing Incorporated.

Archived from the original on May 3, Retrieved May 4, Archived from the original on November 6, Retrieved November 14, Philadelphia Museum of Art. Archived from the original on January 27, Retrieved February 7, But after a year delay, a Calder museum is finally coming to the Parkway". Philadelphia Inquirer. Archived from the original on September 7, Retrieved September 7, Alexander Calder.

Alexander Calder American, Overview Works Biography.

Alexander calder biography artist

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