Alexander Calder

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Alexander Calder on a photograph by Carl van Vechten (1947), from the Van Vechten Collection of the Library of Congress

Alexander Calder (* 22. July 1898 in Lawnton , Pennsylvania ; † 11. November 1976 in New York ) was an American sculptor of modernity . Much of his work can be assigned to kinetic art . He is considered the inventor of the mobile .

life and work

Alexander Calder came from an important family of sculptors. His grandfather, Alexander Milne Calder, designed the 250 figures of the City Hall of Philadelphia , and his father, Alexander Stirling Calder, was a well-known sculptor . Alexander Calder began his artistic work as an autodidact , painting landscapes in addition to his professional activity, among other things as a ship heater. From 1915 to 1919 Calder completed an engineering degree at the Stevens Institute of Technology in Hoboken , New Jersey , before taking drawing and painting courses at the Art Students League in New York from 1923 to 1926 and as a draftsman for The National magazine from 1924 to 1926 Police Gazette made his living.

From 1926 to 1927 Calder stayed in Paris , where his first wooden sculpture was created. From 1927 onwards, Arno Breker's studio, which he shared, created his first movable toys and in 1929 his first movable wire constructions, "as well as the famous circus, a toy ring made of various materials full of wire acrobats with whom Calder designed entire performances for friends."

Calder moved to Paris in 1930, attended the Académie de la Grande Chaumière and met other contemporary artists, including Piet Mondrian and Fernand Léger . His encounter with Piet Mondrian resulted in his first mobiles , which do not seem to be subject to gravity. He finally became acquainted with them and had his first major exhibition in Paris in 1931. Since 1932 he was a member of the artist group Abstraction-Création , which influenced his development towards abstraction.

In 1933 Calder moved to Roxbury / Connecticut, where he made the first mobile designed for outdoor use in 1934 , as well as his first abstract large-scale sculptures. An important concern for him was, based on the efforts of Marcel Duchamp - who christened "the manual or motorized moving constructions of Calder 'Mobiles'" - and others to combine abstraction and movement. In addition to his mobiles , which are moved by the air circulation, he also constructed sculptures driven by motors. For the 1937 World's Fair in Paris, he built a mercury fountain for the Spanish pavilion to commemorate the victims of mercury mining. Other works in the Spanish pavilion included the murals by Pablo Picasso with his world-famous Guernica and Le Faucheur ( The Reaper ) by Joan Miró , which is considered lost. Today Calder's fountain is in the Fundació Joan Miró .

BMW 3.0 CSL, 1975 designed by Calder

In June 1952, Calder's first solo exhibition, Calder Mobile , took place in Germany in the Parnass Gallery in Wuppertal .

Alexander Calder is one of the main representatives of kinetic sculpture . Numerous cross-references in the works of the two artists testify to the lifelong and constructive artistic exchange with his friend Joan Miró.

Alexander Calder took part in documenta 1 (1955), documenta II (1959) and documenta III in 1964 in Kassel . In 1959 he was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and 1960 to the American Academy of Arts and Letters .

In 1975 he designed a racing car for BMW , the first BMW Art Car .

The Calder Foundation

Since 1987, Calder's artistic estate has been looked after by the New York- based Calder Foundation , which has a large private collection. The non-profit family foundation sees its main task in cataloging the complete works and organizing posthumous exhibitions by the artist. In connection with the allocation of inventory numbers - the estimated total number is around 22,000 works - there were repeated legal disputes with art dealers about the "authenticity" of some objects.

Exhibitions

Sculptures

literature

Web links

Commons : Alexander Calder  - collection of images, videos and audio files
Wikiversity: Calder, Alexander (1975)  - Course Materials

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Alexander Calder & Fischli / Weiss | Artinside. Retrieved May 15, 2018 (German).
  2. ^ Gerhard Finkh, Antje Birthälmer (Ed.): Private. Contemporary Wuppertal collectors in the Von der Heydt Museum . From the Heydt Museum Wuppertal, p. 328
  3. ^ Thaddaeus Ropac (Vorw.): Ensemble Moderne. The modern still life. The Still-Life in Modern Art . Galerie Thaddeus Ropac, Salzburg July 25 to August 31, 1998; Paris September 12 to October 10, 1998, Salzburg, Paris 1998, p. 154
  4. ↑ Members: Alexander Calder. American Academy of Arts and Letters, accessed February 20, 2019 .
  5. ↑ FAZ.net: Lawsuit against the Calder Foundation: Who is in power here? (accessed April 30, 2014)
  6. ↑ Alexander Calder, some works In. Zeitbilder , supplement to the Vossische Zeitung , April 7, 1929.
  7. ↑ Alexander Calder: The great sculptures / The other Calder , Hatje Cantz Verlag, Stuttgart 1995. ISBN 3-89322-552-8
  8. ↑ http://www.lacma.org/art/exhibition/calder-and-abstraction-avant-garde-iconic page of the museum on the exhibition, accessed on April 14, 2014.
  9. ^ Announcement on the exhibition , accessed on September 3, 2014.
  10. ↑ A lot can be made out of toys in FAZ of June 6, 2013, page 30
personal data
SURNAME Calder, Alexander
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American sculptor and object artist (Mobiles)
DATE OF BIRTH July 22, 1898
PLACE OF BIRTH Lawnton, Pennsylvania
DATE OF DEATH November 11, 1976
Place of death New York City