Calder used a variety of materials in his work, including wax, clay, and mica. He used wax to create the molds for his statues, and clay to create the skin and hair on his figures. He also used mica to create the reflections in his watercolors and paintings.
What materials did Calder use?
His use of industrial materials—steel, aluminum, and wire—was new. When Calder's mobiles move with the breeze, they change shape and cast interesting shadows. Some even "sing" as their movable parts rub against each other.
What is Alexander Calder style of art?
Modern artKinetic artSurrealismSection d'OrAlexander Calder/Periods
How did Alexander Calder use the elements of art?
Art that does not look like something real or recognizable and emphasizes the elements of art- line, color, shape, texture, and form- is called abstract. He was very inspired by the universe and nature. Calder decided to make abstract sculptures and he cut wood and metal and bent wire into organic or natural shapes.
What kinds of materials did Calder use to build the sculptures in his circus?
Alongside the development of wire sculpture, Calder created the Cirque Calder, a small-scale circus designed to be manipulated by Calder in elaborate performances that could last several hours. Using wire, wood, fabric, and found materials, Calder constructed ingenious figures that he could propel into motion.
Who was the first person who made art?
The first painting was made by primitive men, believed to have been made by Homo Neanderthalis in the prehistoric era. Archaeological excavations carried out in Europe, Africa and Asia reveal that primitive men were the first painters and sculptors and demonstrated through these arts their daily lives.
Where did Alexander Calder get his inspiration?
In the early 1930s, inspired by the color and composition of Piet Mondrian's work, Calder created his breakthrough mobiles. At first these abstract sculptures were motorized; later Calder modified his design to allow free-floating movement, powered only by air currents.
Which characteristics describe Alexander Calder sculptures?
Which characteristics describe Alexander Calder's sculptures? His stabiles can be viewed from all sides. They have simplified flat shapes that intersect at opposing angles. They are abstract, with shapes that suggest real objects.
What does kinetic mean in art?
Kinetic art is art that depends on motion for its effects.
Why is the principle of variety used?
Variety is a principle added by the Artist to create interest by using art elements like Shapes, Color or Lines, etc., by placing them at a different place, position, or angle in an Artwork. If a particular theme is the basis of the artwork adding variety to the composition may be limited.
What makes Lobster Trap and Fish Tail a kinetic sculpture?
The reason why Lobster Trap And Fish Tail is such a successful piece of kinetic art is because of the subject matter: Because the piece is inspired by ocean creatures, when it moves, it reflects the movements of the ocean.
What are two characteristics of installation art?
What are characteristics of installation art? -Installation Art is often site and time specific. -Installation Art utilizes a multi-media approach, including traditional art media like sculpture and textiles, as well as new media and technology.
Why was the Calder Circus such a big deal?
Calder's Circus brought him renown in Paris as he staged it for artist colleagues and friends, including Piet Mondrian, Joan Miró, and Marcel Duchamp. These performances also introduced the kineticism that would become the defining characteristic of Calder's art from the 1930s onward.
What is free standing in art?
Free-standing is a term that describes a piece of art that is not attached to a wall or building or a piece that stands on a pedestal or base.
What does kinetic mean in art?
Kinetic art is art that depends on motion for its effects.
What is kinetic sculpture?
kinetic sculpture, sculpture in which movement (as of a motor-driven part or a changing electronic image) is a basic element. In the 20th century the use of actual movement, kineticism, became an important aspect of sculpture.
What are two characteristics of installation art?
What are characteristics of installation art? -Installation Art is often site and time specific. -Installation Art utilizes a multi-media approach, including traditional art media like sculpture and textiles, as well as new media and technology.
What did Calder make?
At eight, Calder was creating jewelry for his sister's dolls from beads and copper wire. Over the next few years, as his family moved to Pasadena, Philadelphia, New York, and San Francisco, he crafted small animal figures and game boards from scavenged wood and brass.
What was Calder's desire to create abstract paintings that moved through space?
Interested in astronomy, he compared his works' discrete moving parts to the solar system.
How did Calder shift from figurative linear sculptures in wire to abstract forms in motion?
Calder shifted from figurative linear sculptures in wire to abstract forms in motion by creating the first mobiles. 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.
What was Calder's first stabile?
Counterpoint to his mobiles, Calder created many stabiles, composed of intersecting shaped planes of bolted sheet metal, often painted a single color. Devil Fish was the first larger-scale stabile Calder made. By forming combinations of curved biomorphic shapes, Calder creates a swirling sense of motion, even in a static sculpture such as this. Later stabiles combined both organic and geometric forms.
What did Alexander Calder do?
Alexander Calder, known as Sandy, was born into a long line of sculptors, being part of the fourth generation to take up the art form. Constructing objects from a very young age , his first known art tool was a pair of pliers. At eight, Calder was creating jewelry for his sister's dolls from beads and copper wire. Over the next few years, as his family moved to Pasadena, Philadelphia, New York, and San Francisco, he crafted small animal figures and game boards from scavenged wood and brass. Calder's interest initially led not to art, but to mechanical engineering and applied kinetics, which he studied at Stevens Institute of Technology in Hoboken, New Jersey (1915-1919).
What is Alexander Calder's sculpture?
American artist Alexander Calder redefined sculpture by introducing the element of movement, first through performances of his mechanical Calder's Circus and later with motorized works, and, finally, with hanging works called "mobiles.". In addition to his abstract mobiles, Calder also created static sculptures, ...
What is the significance of Calder's Circus?
Three films were made of Calder's Circus performances, but the work's significance is that it is one of the earliest modern works in which the artist is equally involved as both a "maker" and a performer. Artwork Images.
What did Calder do?
Calder received a degree in mechanical engineering. He worked as an engineer for a short time but then decided to study painting in New York City. He earned money by drawing illustrations for newspapers. He drew pictures of the circus for one paper and also made hundreds of animal drawings at the zoo.
What is Calder's most famous work?
However, he is most famous for his moving sculptures, called mobiles. Instead of anchoring these three-dimensional works to the ground, Calder usually suspended them from the ceiling to allow them to float freely in space. To make a mobile, he attached brightly painted metal shapes to wire, using trial and error to balance each one. He usually cut natural forms that looked like leaves and petals rather than hardedge geometric shapes. Calder's engineering background came in handy as he experimented with different materials to balance and build his mobiles. His use of industrial materials—steel, aluminum, and wire—was new. When Calder's mobiles move with the breeze, they change shape and cast interesting shadows. Some even "sing" as their movable parts rub against each other.
What do students learn in sculpture?
Students will learn the vocabulary of contemporary sculpture and be able to distinguish between abstract and realistic sculpture, mobile and stabile, and biomorphic and geometric. Then they will build a Calder-style mobile online and/or offline with art supplies. Lastly, they will complete a worksheet to connect the Fibonacci sequence to a mobile by Alexander Calder.
What is abstract art?
Abstract: style of art that does not represent its subject matter in a realistic way. It emphasizes the elements of art—line, color, shape, texture, and form—to express its subject.
What did Calder do?
Although primarily known for his sculpture, Calder also created paintings and prints, miniatures ( such as his famous Cirque Calder ), theater set design, jewelry design, tapestries and rugs, and political posters.
What did Calder do in his career?
In addition to sculptures, Calder painted throughout his career, beginning in the early 1920s. He picked up his study of printmaking in 1925, and continued to produce illustrations for books and journals. His projects from this period include pen-and-ink line drawings of animals for a 1931 publication of Aesop 's fables. As Calder's sculpture moved into the realm of pure abstraction in the early 1930s, so did his prints. The thin lines used to define figures in the earlier prints and drawings began delineating groups of geometric shapes, often in motion. Calder also used prints for advocacy, as in poster prints from 1967 and 1969 protesting the Vietnam War.
What was the name of the play that Calder created?
Calder created stage sets for more than a dozen theatrical productions, including Nucléa, Horizon, and most notably, Martha Graham 's Panorama (1935), a production of the Erik Satie symphonic drama Socrate (1936), and later, Works in Progress (1968).
How old was Calder when he made the man cube?
Four-year-old Calder posed nude for his father's sculpture The Man Cub, a cast of which is now in the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City. In 1902 he also completed his earliest sculpture, a clay elephant.
Why did Alexander Calder choose mechanical engineering?
"I was not very sure what this term meant, but I thought I'd better adopt it", he later wrote. He enrolled at the Stevens Institute of Technology in Hoboken, New Jersey, in 1915. When asked why he decided to study mechanical engineering instead of art Calder said, "I wanted to be an engineer because some guy I rather liked was a mechanical engineer, that's all ". At Stevens, Calder was a member of the Delta Tau Delta fraternity and excelled in mathematics. He was well-liked and the class yearbook contained the following description, "Sandy is evidently always happy, or perhaps up to some joke, for his face is always wrapped up in that same mischievous, juvenile grin. This is certainly the index to the man's character in this case, for he is one of the best natured fellows there is."
Where did the Calder family live?
The Calder family moved from Arizona to Pasadena , California. The windowed cellar of the family home became Calder's first studio and he received his first set of tools. He used scraps of copper wire to make jewelry for his sister's dolls. On January 1, 1907, Nanette Calder took her son to the Tournament of Roses Parade in Pasadena, where he observed a four-horse-chariot race. This style of event later became the finale of Calder's miniature circus performances.
Where is Calder's work?
Calder's work is in many permanent collections, including the Whitney Museum of American Art, the Guggenheim Museum, the Museum of Modern Art, the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C., and the Centre Georges Pompidou in Paris. He produced many large public works, including .125 (at JFK Airport, 1957), Pittsburgh ...
What was Calder's invention?
Calder continued developing “mobiles,” his signature inventions consisting of delicate cascades of wire and shaped bits of metal, wood, or glass. Normally suspended from the ceiling and moving gently in response to air currents, they never fail to energize the space around them.
Where did Calder spend his time?
Then, in the 1920s and early 1930s, like his parents in their younger years, Calder spent some formative time in Paris, where he fell in with a legion of artists and writers who would help shape the ethos, attitudes, and styles of modernism.
What wood did Perl use for his Constellations?
About the sculptor’s Constellations series of the 1940s, a group of small, freestanding works that employed bits of walnut, maple, or mahogany, Perl observes, “To work in wood was to embrace a substance that already had a mysterious life of its own.”.
What did Calder discover about Mondrian?
For Perl, that breakthrough discovery provides the main key to understanding the evolution of Calder’s revolutionary art.
What is the book Calder?
Calder: The Conquest of Space: The Later Years: 1940-1976 (Knopf, 2020) is the second and final volume of Jed Perl’s exhaustively researched recounting of a deeply influential, big-name modernist’s very big life.
Who wrote that the art of the mobile transformed a fantasy of matter in motion?
Perl writes that “for an artist with an imagination as voracious as Sandy Calder’s, the vigorous imperatives of reality were never far from the equally vigorous imperatives of fantasy.” Although Calder hobnobbed with the European Surrealists, as Perl notes, when it came to “artistic controversies, debates, and turf battles,” he “kept his own counsel.” His art defied familiar labels. “The art of the mobile, after all, transformed a fantasy of matter-in-motion into matter that actually moved.”
Where did Calder live in the 1940s?
With World War II brewing, the artist left Paris for the United States, where he and his wife Louisa, a grandniece of the writer Henry James, purchased an 18th-century farmhouse in western Connecticut (though his deep, abiding ties to France would lead him, in the 1950s, to set up a second residence and an ever-expanding studio in the Touraine region, southwest of Paris).
What did Calder do?
While residing in France between 1926 and 1933 (with frequent trips back to the United States and to other European countries), he was lauded as the “king of wire” for his cleverly constructed three-dimensional renderings. Using that technique, Calder turned out charming representations of birds, cows (one complete with a “cow patty”: Cow, 1929), elephants, horses, and other animals, including the extraordinary Romulus and Remus of 1928 that depicts the mythical founders of Rome being nursed by a she-wolf. He also created intricate tableaus of circus performers, a subject he had been earlier introduced to as a sketch artist for the National Police Gazette, an influential New York tabloid. But Calder particularly recommended himself with his sensational full-body portraits of jazz-era dancer Josephine Baker and bust portraits of many in his Parisian artistic circle, such as Miró, composer Edgard Varèse, and socialite Kiki de Montparnasse. The making of his Kiki of Montparnasse was filmed by Pathé Cinema in 1929.
What animals did Calder depict?
Using that technique, Calder turned out charming representations of birds, cows (one complete with a “cow patty”: Cow, 1929), elephants, horses, and other animals, including the extraordinary Romulus and Remus of 1928 that depicts the mythical founders of Rome being nursed by a she-wolf.
What was Cirque Calder made of?
Replete with spring-action and pull-toy performers and animals that he created out of bits and pieces of cloth, yarn, cork, and wire, Calder sent the acts through their paces while providing sound effects. For many years Cirque Calder was considered a youthful precursor to his more-serious endeavours.
When was Calder's first book published?
Calder proved himself a fluid draftsman, and in 1926 his first book, the drawing manual Animal Sketching, was published; it was reissued as part of an art instructional series in 1941, reprinted in 1973, and is still in print. In 1926 he also sailed to England, made his way to Paris, and was ensconced in a studio there by late summer. He remained tied to France during his lifetime, eventually establishing a studio in Saché (now the site of Atelier Calder, which hosts young sculptors in a residency program).
Where did Calder go to school?
After a peripatetic childhood, relocating from Pennsylvania to Arizona, California, and New York as necessitated by his father’s commissions and teaching positions, 17-year-old Calder enrolled in the Stevens Institute of Technology in Hoboken, New Jersey, and received a degree in mechanical engineering in 1919.
Who was Calder's mother?
Calder was the son and grandson of artists—his mother was the painter Nanette Calder (née Lederer; 1866–1960), his father the sculptor Alexander Stirling Calder (1870–1945), and his grandfather sculptor Alexander Milne Calder (1846–1923).
Who was the artist who created the mobiles?
Further experimentation with motion led Calder to create motorized pieces; it was those works that were famously dubbed mobiles by artist-provocateur Marcel Duchamp. During his Paris years, Calder showed extensively in Europe and the U.S. and quickly became a highly recognizable artist because of his unique contributions.
What is Calder known for?
Calder is best known for his invention of mobiles, delicate constructions of wire, metal, and wood that move with the slightest breeze. However, during the last twenty years of his life, Calder focused on monumental, static stabiles for public commissions.
What did Alexander Calder do as a child?
As a child, Alexander Calder had his own workshop where he created gadgets and toys from scraps of metal and wood. He studied engineering at the Stevens Institute of Technology in New Jersey, and worked in a succession of unskilled jobs, which included timekeeping at a logging camp and demonstrating garden cultivators. These workaday jobs motivated Calder to move to Paris to study art. In Europe, Calder entertained his wide circle of friends, including artists Joan Miró, Marcel Duchamp, and Piet Mondrian, with a huge variety of articulated toys, circus figures, and wire sculptures. Calder is best known for his invention of mobiles, delicate constructions of wire, metal, and wood that move with the slightest breeze. However, during the last twenty years of his life, Calder focused on monumental, static stabiles for public commissions.
Who is the sculptor who created the first mobile?
Sculptor, world renowned for his stabiles and mobiles begun in the 1930 s. Calder ’s vision was broad and groundbreaking, and his output was prodigiousranging from small figurines to large, architecturally related sculptures, from whimsical toys to stage sets.
Who is Joan Stahl?
Joan Stahl American Artists in Photographic Portraits from the Peter A. Juley & Son Collection (Washington, D.C. and Mineola, New York: National Museum of American Art and Dover Publications, Inc., 1995) Alexander Calder was born in Philadelphia in 1898, the son of the distinguished academic sculptor A. Stirling Calder.
Who created the first abstract stabiles?
Impressed by the work of Juan Miró, Jean Arp, and Fernand Léger, he created his first abstract stabiles in 1930. These works also owe much to the rectilinear designs of Piet Mondrian. From these early works and his interest in movement, Calder developed handcranked, motorized, and then wind-powered constructions that were dubbed “ mobiles” by the French artist Marcel Duchamp. These sculptures, usually painted in bold basic colors, turn, bob, and rotate, in a constantly changing relationship to the space around them.
What did George Luks do in 1926?
While in Paris in 1926, he took up sculpture.
Summary of Alexander Calder
Accomplishments
- Many artists made contour line drawings on paper, but Calder was the first to use wire to create three-dimensional line "drawings" of people, animals, and objects. These "linear sculptures" introdu...
- Calder shifted from figurative linear sculptures in wire to abstract forms in motion by creating the first mobiles. Composed of pivoting lengths of wire counterbalanced with thin metal fins, …
- Many artists made contour line drawings on paper, but Calder was the first to use wire to create three-dimensional line "drawings" of people, animals, and objects. These "linear sculptures" introdu...
- Calder shifted from figurative linear sculptures in wire to abstract forms in motion by creating the first mobiles. Composed of pivoting lengths of wire counterbalanced with thin metal fins, the ap...
Biography of Alexander Calder
- Childhood
Alexander Calder, known as Sandy, was born into a long line of sculptors, being part of the fourth generation to take up the art form. Constructing objects from a very young age, his first known art tool was a pair of pliers. At eight, Calder was creating jewelry for his sister's dolls from beads an… - Early Training
After graduating from college, Calder tried many jobs: automotive engineer, draftsman and map-colorist, steam boat stoker, and hydraulics engineer among them. In 1922, he took evening drawing classes at the 42nd Street New York Public School. The next year he studied painting a…
Overview
Alexander Calder was an American sculptor known both for his innovative mobiles (kinetic sculptures powered by motors or air currents) that embrace chance in their aesthetic, his static "stabiles", and his monumental public sculptures. Calder preferred not to analyze his work, saying, "Theories may be all very well for the artist himself, but they shouldn't be broadcast to other people."
Notes
1. ^ "Alexander Calder Introduction". Calder Foundation. Retrieved July 22, 2015.
2. ^ "Who is Alexander Calder?". Tate. Retrieved 2020-12-19.
3. ^ "Alexander Calder Chronology". Calder Foundation. Retrieved July 22, 2015.
Early life
Alexander "Sandy" Calder was born in 1898 in Lawnton, Pennsylvania. His birthdate remains a source of confusion. According to Calder's mother, Nanette (née Lederer), Calder was born on August 22, yet his birth certificate at Philadelphia City Hall, based on a hand-written ledger, stated July 22. When Calder's family learned of the birth certificate, they asserted with certainty that city officials had made a mistake.
Life and career
Alexander Calder's parents did not want him to be an artist, so he decided to study mechanical engineering. An intuitive engineer since childhood, Calder did not even know what mechanical engineering was. "I was not very sure what this term meant, but I thought I'd better adopt it," he later wrote. He enrolled at the Stevens Institute of Technology in Hoboken, New Jersey, in 1915. When asked …
Artistic work
In Paris in 1926, Calder began to create his Cirque Calder, a miniature circus fashioned from wire, cloth, string, rubber, cork, and other found objects. Designed to be transportable (it grew to fill five large suitcases), the circus was presented on both sides of the Atlantic. Soon, his Cirque Calder (on view at the Whitney Museum of American Art at present) became popular with the Parisia…
Exhibitions
Calder's first solo exhibition was in 1927 at the Gallery of Jacques Seligmann in Paris. His first solo show in a US commercial gallery was in 1928 at the Weyhe Gallery in New York City. He exhibited with the Abstraction-Création group in Paris in 1933.
In 1935, he had his first solo museum exhibition in the United States at The Re…
Collections
Calder's work is in many permanent collections across the world. The Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, has the largest body of work by Alexander Calder. Other museum collections include the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York; the Museum of Modern Art, New York; the Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris; the Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía, Madrid; and the National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C. There are two pieces on display in the G…
Recognition and awards
• 1939 – First prize in the Museum of Modern Art, New York, competition for Plexiglas sculpture
• 1952 – Represented the United States at the Venice Biennale and was awarded the main prize for sculpture
• 1955 – Philadelphia Art Festival, for Pre-eminence in Art