Alexander Calder's Balancing Act in Art and Life

Calder moved to New York in 1923 and studied art while working for the National Police Gazette. Calder’s assignment to sketch the Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus in 1925 began a lifelong fascination with circus imagery. After moving to Paris in 1926 to continue his art studies, Calder befriended a group of avant-garde artists, including Fernand Léger, Jean Arp, Piet Mondrian, and Marcel Duchamp. In 1928, Calder met Louisa James, the grand-niece of novelist Henry James, on a transatlantic voyage. The pair married in 1931.

While Calder had started to explore abstractionism, he didn’t fully embrace abstraction until after a tour of Mondrian’s studio, which had a considerable impact on his sensibilities. Already an artist with moderately successful solo shows on both sides of the Atlantic, Calder had his first abstract exhibition in Paris in 1931 and exhibited with the Abstraction-Création group in 1933.

Calder frequently worked with found objects, as well as wood, metal, and wire, meticulously designing his sculptures, which often involved delicately balanced, shifting parts. In 1926, he began crafting dozens of kinetic wire sculptures inspired by circus imagery, small enough to be packed into a large suitcase. These became one of his most beloved installations, Cirque Calder, a transportable circus menagerie designed to be manually manipulated for performance art installations. 

“Mobile” is a French pun meaning both "motion" and "motive.” Calder's friend Duchamp coined the term to describe the wonderfully changeable suspended sculptures, which shift and move in response to either wind or a discrete motor, creating an interplay of form and space. Jean Arp dubbed Calder’s large free-standing abstract sculptures, "stabiles," to differentiate them from “mobiles.” The 1937 Exposition Internationale des Arts et Techniques dans la Vie Moderne included Calder's stabile Mercury Fountain.

Calder built his reputation and audience over the late 1930s and early 1940s. In 1948, he nearly sold out an entire solo show in Rio de Janeiro, becoming the first internationally renowned sculptor. His work is in museum and gallery collections and outdoor installations all over the world. Many of his outdoor sculptures have become beloved landmarks and cultural touchstones.

In addition to sculpture, Calder also designed stage sets for over a dozen theatrical productions, designed jewelry using wire, porcelain shards, and found objects, produced illustrations for books and journals, and was commissioned to paint airline jets and the first vehicle in the BMW Art Car Project.