Designer of the Month: Alexander Calder

Week 3: mobiles

In the fall of 1930, Alexander Calder visited the Paris studio of Dutch painter and abstract pioneer Piet Mondrian, who invited Calder over after attending a performance of the Cirque Calder.[1] As Calder recalls of this visit:

I was very much moved by Mondrian's studio, large, beautiful, and irregular in shape as it was, with the walls painted white and divided by black lines and rectangles of bright color, like his paintings. It was very lovely, with a cross-light (there were windows on both sides, and I thought at the time how fine it would be if everything there moved; though Mondrian himself did not approve of this idea at all.[2]

Isn't that an amazing revelation? Calder was clearly moved by this experience, which marked a distinct end to the early part of his career. Afterward, his work veered almost entirely towards abstraction; at 32, he was determined to create abstract works that would be taken seriously.[3] A year later, the above quote would prove even more significant, when Calder would create his first truly kinetic sculptures.[4]

Calder in his Roxbury icehouse studio at work on Project for Mechanical Ballet for Harrison Kerr, 1934. Courtesy of the Calder Foundation.

Believing that the next step in sculpture was motion, during an 1932 interview, Calder asked the question, "Why must art be static?"[5] The first kinetic sculptures that Calder created moved by systems of cranks and motors, and were dubbed "mobiles" by Marcel Duchamp, a word that, in French, refers to both "motion" and "motive."[6] These early hand-worked mobiles were quickly abandoned, however, for designs that would move either on their own, or make use of air currents, a design feature that Calder would continue to utilize throughout his career.[7] As Howard Greenfeld explains in The Essential Alexander Calder, Calder's ultimate goal was "wind-driven or air-driven sculptures that would respond to the slightest breath - a sigh, a cough, or a whistle. It would be art that moved through the intricate balancing or counterbalancing of the weight within the piece itself."[8] As Calder himself explained about these works, "I think that one of the primary models from which I develop form is the structure of the universe, or part of it. I work from a large live model. When everything goes right, a mobile is a piece of poetry that dances with the joy of life and surprises."[9]

Alexander Calder, A Universe, 1934. Painted iron pipe, steel wire, motor, and wood with string. Courtesy of the Museum of Modern Art, New York.

In 1933, Calder and his wife Louisa moved from France back to the U.S., to an old farmhouse they purchased in Roxbury, Connecticut, and to a new studio.[10] Returning to the U.S. brought new opportunities for Calder, including collaborations. As Calder's fascination with movement included that of dance, his work soon extended into the world of choreography. During the 1930s, in addition to continued performances of the Cirque Calder and gallery exhibits of his mobiles, Calder also constructed sets for dance productions, including working with our old friend Martha Graham, and a critically-acclaimed set for a staged version of Erik Satie's symphonic drama, Socrate.[11] For Socrate, the three large mobiles that Calder created took center stage as the only moving elements in the production, a prelude to his future public commissions and monumental sculptures.[12]

Alexander Calder, Cone d'ebene, 1933. Ebony, wire and metal bar. Courtesy of the Calder Foundation.

[1] Howard Greenfeld, The Essential Alexander Calder, (New York: Harry N. Abrams, Inc., 2003), 57.

[2] Ibid., 57.

[3] Ibid., 58.

[4] The Calder Foundation online, "Biography," http://calder.org/life/page/biography.html, (accessed September 15, 2010).

[5] Howard Greenfeld, The Essential Alexander Calder, (New York: Harry N. Abrams, Inc.,
2003), 67.

[6] The Calder Foundation online, "Biography," http://calder.org/life/page/biography.html, (accessed September 15, 2010).

[7] Ibid.

[8] Howard Greenfeld, The Essential Alexander Calder, (New York: Harry N. Abrams, Inc.,
2003), 71.

[9] Ibid., 75.

[10] The Calder Foundation online, "Biography," http://calder.org/life/page/biography.html, (accessed September 15, 2010).

[11] Howard Greenfeld, The Essential Alexander Calder, (New York: Harry N. Abrams, Inc.,
2003), 77-8.

[12] Ibid., 78.