Biographie of Alexander Calder

Alexander Calder was born in a family of artists: his Scottish grandfather, and his father, Alexander Stirling Calder, author of many public monuments in Philadelphia, are famous sculptors, and his mother, Nanette Lederer Calder, painter. This youth surrounded by artists, MoMA in New York retains a sculptor of Calder father, The Man Cub, representative Calder four year old son.

Child, Calder, who has in his parents of his own workshop, already use its ten fingers to achieve, from pieces of scrap metal recovered, jewelry for its sister small dolls, or animals in sheet of brass.

Artist engineer

Although themselves artists, Calder parents does not encourage to follow their trail. Also he began studies of mechanical engineering, facilitated by his love of mathematics.

After various jobs in engineering, Calder decided nonetheless to become artist and enrolled in 1923 at the Arts Student League of New York to study painting. Illustrator for the National Police Gazette, and then for the performances of the Barnum Circus Calder is passionate about the theme of the Circus: this fascination leads in 1926 on the creation of the Cirque Calder, staged from figures made of wire and in which the artist plays the role of master of ceremonies and puppeteer.

The Parisian years

Calder was meanwhile installed in Paris, in the artist district of Montparnasse. There, he began making articulated toys and gives his circus performances that delight the artists of the Parisian avant-garde, particularly Miró, Cocteau, Man Ray, Robert Desnos, Fernand Léger and Le Corbusier.

The meeting of Piet Mondrian in 1930 is a major influence on Calder. He abandons the figurative sculpture and adopts a sculptural abstract and colorful language.

To l' abstraction: mobile

Executed in wire and wood, its new works evoke the schema of the universe. Artist builds sculptures consist of independent mobile elements driven by an electric motor or a crank, Marcel Duchamp named mobile. Non-air Calder sculptures will be appointed by opposition static.

Returning to the United States in 1933, Calder met a great success. He continues to give Cirque Calder performances, works staged works of Erik Satie and Martha Graham.

From the 1950s, major commands assigned and Calder focuses on the monumental sculpture, especially in 1958 the spiral, mobile for the UNESCO headquarters in Paris. He knows the dedication in 1964 with a retrospective at the Guggenheim Museum in New York.

Alexander Calder died on November 11, 1976 in New York at the age of seventy-eight