Alexander calder born. Alexander Calder 2023-01-05

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Alexander Calder was a renowned American sculptor and artist who was born on July 22, 1898 in Lawnton, Pennsylvania. He was the son of artist Alexander Stirling Calder and grandnephew of sculptor Alexander Milne Calder, both of whom were influential figures in the art world.

Calder's artistic talent was apparent from a young age and he received formal training in art and sculpture at the Stevens Institute of Technology and the Art Students League of New York. However, he also had a passion for engineering and received a degree in mechanical engineering from Stevens Institute in 1919.

Calder's early work focused on painting and drawing, but he eventually found his true passion in sculpture. He is best known for his innovative use of wire and sheet metal to create abstract, kinetic sculptures that moved with the wind or at the touch of a finger. These sculptures, which he referred to as "mobiles," became his signature style and were exhibited in galleries and museums around the world.

Calder's work was highly influential in the development of the abstract expressionist movement and he is considered one of the pioneers of modern sculpture. In addition to his mobiles, Calder also created a number of large-scale public installations, including the stabile "The Universe" at the Palais de Tokyo in Paris and the mobile "Five Disks" at the National Gallery of Art in Washington D.C.

Throughout his career, Calder received numerous awards and accolades for his work, including the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1977. He died on November 11, 1976 in New York City, leaving behind a legacy as one of the most innovative and influential artists of the 20th century.

alexander calder

alexander calder born

There Calder discovered a cabaret dancer, Josephine Baker, and made dancing wire figures of her. Art was in his genes. During the award ceremony on January 10, 1977, family members were urged to make "a statement in favor of amnesty for Vietnam War rebels. Retrieved June 3, 2020. He also played lacrosse, for which he had the most aptitude. It remains the artist's only monumental sculpture in Italy. National Endowment for the Arts.

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21 Facts About Alexander Calder

alexander calder born

Still fascinated by the circus, he crafted moving maquettes of animals and acrobats for what would become Cirque Calder. In 1902, at the age of four, Calder posed nude for his father's sculpture The man Cub, which is now in New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art. I learned to speak side to side with my mouth and have never been entirely able to correct myself since. In 1928 he held his first solo exhibition in a commercial gallery, at the Weyhe Gallery in New York. While not denying Calder's power as a sculptor, an alternate view of the history of twentieth-century art machine as a critical and potentially expressive new element in human affairs. Thus, in 1915, Calder decided to study mechanical engineering after learning about the discipline from a classmate at Lowell High School, one Hyde Lewis. Although Calder is known internationally as an artist, he initially studied mechanical engineering at Stevens Institute of Technology in Hoboken, NJ.

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Alexander Calder Sculptures, Bio, Ideas

alexander calder born

Works such as Man contributed to the proliferation of public art during the second half of the 20 th century. In 1946, Paris' Galerie Louis Carre organized another important exhibition of Calder's work, for which Jean-Paul Sartre wrote a landmark catalog essay. He held exhibitions and executed commissions across Europe, finally returning again to the U. By the end of 1931 he had quickly arrived at the most delicate sculptures that derived their motion from the air currents in the rooms. While in New York City, he worked for the National Police Gazette, and was sent on assignment to sketch circuses, a festive motif that would become a famous and enduring subject in his work. He died that same year, at 78 years old.

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Alexander Calder · SFMOMA

alexander calder born

In the summer of 1916, Calder spent five weeks training at Plattsburg Civilian Military Training Camp. As Calder's professional reputation expanded in the late 1940s and 1950s, so did his production of prints. Large-scale works include La grande vitesse, the first artwork intended for public placement funded by the NEA, National Endowment for the Arts. In Croton, during his early school years, Calder befriended the painter Everett Shinn, with whom he built a mechanical train system with gravity propulsion. After Arizona, the family moved to Pasadena, California.

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Alexander Calder Biography

alexander calder born

Thus Calder's real mobiles were born. He also made works such as Seven Horizontal Discs 1946 , which, like Lily of Force 1945 and Baby Flat Top 1946 , he was able to dismantle and send by mail for his upcoming show at Galerie Louis Carré in Paris, despite the stringent size restrictions imposed by the postal service at the time. Calder devised improvised shows, recreating the acts of a real circus. His structures were carefully weighted and balanced, remaining sensitive to the movement of the wind or the motions of the viewer. The acclaimed artist Alexander Calder's studio, 1975.

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Alexander Calder

alexander calder born

So do wind and vibrations. The New York Times. Composed of pivoting lengths of wire counterbalanced with thin metal fins, the appearance of the entire piece was randomly arranged and rearranged in space by chance simply by the air moving the individual parts. In 1926 he moved to Paris and began making toylike animals and circus figures of wood and wire; from these he developed his famous miniature circus. In 1933, Calder and his wife settled permanently in Roxbury, Connecticut. It was filled with wire and wooden sculptures, painting, toys and jewelry. Constructing objects from a very young age, his first known art tool was a pair of pliers.

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Alexander Milne Calder

alexander calder born

In the 1930s he became well known in Paris and the U. He became popular in the art world for his Calder's Circus performances during which he set in motion the many different characters and animals he had created. In 1927 Calder returned to the United States. Retrieved July 21, 2011. His works were acquired by every major museum in the world. 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 c.

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Alexander Calder: Works for Sale, Upcoming Auctions & Past Results

alexander calder born

In 1910, his father Stirling Calder's recovery was complete and the family returned to Philadelphia, where Alexander briefly attended Germantown Academy, and later to Croton-on-Hudson in New York. Retrieved June 20, 2013. Calder found employment as a timekeeper in a sawmill. His mother, Nanette Lederer Calder, was a professional portraitist who had studied at the Académie Julian and at the Sorbonne in Paris from about 1888 to 1893. Salute to Mexico, was commissioned but went uncompleted following his death. The Calder Family and Other Critters: Portraits and Reflections.


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Alexander Calder

alexander calder born

Guggenheim Museum in New York mounted an extensive retrospective. Even Jean-Paul Sartre was inspired to write an essay, Existentialist on Mobilist, describing the unpredictable movements of the mobiles and its effects on an endless imagination. He sought ways to make his sculptures move freely and at random, hanging shapes from different lengths of horizontal wires at various angles. Such grand stabiles are dynamic works, with their arches, points, and flowing forms reaching out in multiple directions. Retrieved August 7, 2011.


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