Google Doodle

July 22, 2011 on the date of what would have been Calder's 113th birthday; Google honored and celebrated the artist with an interactive doodle inspired by one of his brightly colored "mobiles."  The interactive design was featured on the homepage of the Google search engine and reacted to mouse/cursor positioning and interaction making the idea almost as real as one of Calder's own infamous "mobiles."

Death & Legacy

Two months after his death, Calder was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom which is the highest civilian honor one could receive in the United States.  The award was to be presented by President Gerald Ford on January, 10 1977; but the ceremony was boycotted by the family of Calder.  They claimed they were doing so to "make a statement favoring amnesty for Vietnam War draftees."


Since then a foundation has been set up in Calder's name.  The foundation runs its own programs, collaborates on exhibitions and publications, and gives advice on matters such as the history, assembly, and restoration of works by Calder.  The Foundation has large holdings from Calder family members and other foundation supporters and founders.


There was once plans for a Alexander Calder memorial museum to be built in Philadelphia in his honor, but plans for it have been put on hold for the time being.  Museums all over the world hold Calder exihibits and some have whole rooms dedicated to his works such as in the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York and the National Gallery of Art in Washington D.C.


Below is the "Calder Room" at the National Gallery of Art in Washington D.C.:

Later Years

Towards the final years of his life, Calder devoted most of his artwork on commissions he received from the public and other beneficiaries.  They were mostly monumental and metal in design; such as his piece "Teodelpio" which he designed for a town in Italy and "Man" a sculpture he built for the 1967 Montreal Olympics exposition.

"Man"

"Teodelpio"

Aula Magna

The "Aula Magna" is a huge brightly colored multi sculptured piece that scatters across an acoustic ceiling.  It was designed in 1953 by Calder for the auditorium at Universidad Central de Venezuela. It was created in what is categorized as Calder's more Prolific years.

Lobster Trap and Fish Tail

Created in 1939, the "Lobster Trap and Fish Tail" was installed in the main stairwell of the new Museum of Modern Art building in New York.  It consists of painted wire and sheet aluminum and is about 8' 6" (260 cm) x 9' 6" (290 cm) in diameter.

International Mobile

In 1943, the Museum of Modern Art hosted a well-received Calder retrospective, it was curated by James Johnson Sweeney and Marcel Duchamp.  


Calder was one of 250 sculptors who was exhibited in the 3rd Sculpture International held at the Philadelphia Museum of Art in 1949. "International Mobile" was the centerpiece of the exhibition. The picture above is an image of Alexander Calder installing the "International Mobile."

Calder Jewelry

Over the course of his life Alexander Calder had created around 1800 pieces of jewelry.  Most of them were created from scraps of metal like brass and steal and also would contain pieces of ceramic or wood to accent them.  What made his jewelry even more interesting was the fact that Calder rarely used solder; when he needed to join strips of metal, he linked them with loops, bound them with snippets of wire or fashioned rivets.


In 1942 at the oppening of her New York gallery, Peggy Guggeheim wore 1 earing from Calder's collection and another from Yves Tanguy's to show her equal loyalty towards both abstract and surrealist art.  Other people who were presented with Calder's jewlery were close friends of his and people within the art community he respected; such as Georgia O'Keeffe, Alexina Duchamp (wife of Marcel Duchamp), Jeanne Ruca (wife of filmmaker Luis Bunuel), and Bella Rosenfeld (wife of Marc Chagall).

Mercury Fountain

In 1937 Calder created the Mercury Fountain for the Spanish Pavilion at the World's Fair.  The fountain was designed with real mercury and is today housed behind glass.  It was in the entrance hall, opposite Pablo Picasso's "Guernica", also designed especially for the exhibition. Like Picasso's painting, this sculpture is a political statement, protesting Franco's siege of the Almaden mercury mines during the Spanish Civil War.

El Sol Rojo

Calder was employed to create his largest sculpture "El Sol Rojo" in 1968 for the New Mexico Summer Olympic Games outside of Aztec Stadium in Mexico City.  It stood at 20.5m tall

Flamingo

In the 50s Calder became mainly focused on producing massive monumental sculptures that revolved around the idea of large metal work.  Calder's most known and renound piece of work is probably his "Flamingo" sculpture which is located in Chicago, IL as it stands triumphantly in the middle of Federal Plaza.  The"Flamingo"like other pieces of his work is brightly colored (red), simplistic yet abstract in design, and was created to express great emotion.

Devil Fish

Devil fish was a piece created by Calder in what was called his "War Years" and was a reaction to World War II.  It is made from sheet metal, bolts, and paint.  This was his first attempt at a large bolted stabile sculpture and it was created entirely from sheet metal.

Cirque Calder

In 1926 at the request of a Serbian toy merchant Calder began designing a series of toys.  This then lead to the inspiration for his "Cirque Calder" piece which was a miniature circus fashioned from wire, rubber, cloth, and other found objects.  It was made 10 years later in 1936 while Calder lived in Paris. It was designed to be portable as Calder traveled across the seas performing an act that imitated an actual circus on a miniature level.

Throughout the 30s Calder performed his "Cirque Calder" act, but also worked with Martha Graham designing stage sets for her ballets.  He also created a moving stage construction for Eric Satie's "Socrate"

Below is a video of Calder setting up and briefly performing his "Cirque Calder"

Red Mobile

In the middle of his life/career Calder designed a series of "mobiles."  He became most famous for these hanging wire 3D sculptures.  One of the more famous of these pieces was his "Red Mobile."  The "Red Mobile" was a smaller work compared to his larger outdoor metal sculptures.  It was composed of a thin wire connecting several red petals made from cut metals.  Due to its elegance and caused reactions it soon became known as one of Calder's signature works.

Breeze Through Calder

"Early Years": 1898-1930

The time period in which Calder began.  Calder began his career in art and designed a series of smaller pieces and toys as he discovered the art world trying to find his niche.

"Abstraction Years": 1930- 1936

A time when Calder made his complete transition into abstract art discovering/creating the idea of mobiles "moving stationary art."  Most of his art is based around these ideas and structures.

"War Years": 1937-1945

A time period in which Calder's pieces were influenced by the then current World War II and its impact on the world, there for art.

"Prolific Years": 1945-76

This is the period of time where Calder first gained an interest in larger designed monumental sculptures. His monumental sculptures can be seen all over the world outside of stadiums, museums, squares, etc.

Bio

Born July 22, 1898 in Lawton, Pennsylvania to a family of artists, Alexander "Sandy" Calder was an abstract artist most known for his metal work sculptures containing vibrant emotion driving colors. But Calder was much more experienced than what he is usually accredited for.  Calder was born into the world of Art as the second child of his sculptor father and painter mother.  Although Alexander didn't quickly find solace in the metaphysics of the standard art his family was known for, it was apparent that it would play an important role in his future; in fact it was in his blood line.  His grandfather Alexander Miline Calder is most famous for his William Penn sculpture that stands upon City Hall overlooking Philadelphia.  And his father Alexander Stirling Calder was also most famous for his prolific statues of  important historical figures.


Despite his talents, Calder did not originally set out to become an artist. He dabbled in other areas first such as engineering, even earning a degree in that field from Stevens Institute of Technology in Hoboken, NJ.  But it wasn't long after until Calder realized his passions and decided upon a life in art.  Calder had tried to touch almost areas of art working with sculptures, paintings, jewelry, and large outstanding monuments.  Most of Calder's works are vibrant in color such as red and are usually trying to convey emotion in some way.  But most notably Calder is known or employed for his sculptures. Calder's massive metallic abstract sculptures could be found all over the world.  And although they lacked complexity in design, they more than made up for it in emotion.  It was through the examples of his own art that its clear that Calder believed that the simplest things in life could be responsible for evoking the most response or emotions from us.  He utilized his genius and eventually changed the course of all modern art.  Calder developed a new method of sculpting by bending and twisting wires.  He creation was based around the ideas of stationary motion.  He named his newest creation a "mobile."


Below is a video example of one of Calder's "mobiles" that once stood in a Philadelphia parkway: