Alexander Calder's RED CURLICUE

Recently presented for auction at Chrisitie's was the work of Alexander Calder (1898-1976) called "Red Curlicue." The piece is made of stabile-painted sheet metal, 192 x 126 x 96 inches. It was executed in 1973.

From the New York Times:

“Red Curlicue” signed with Alexander Calder’s initials “CA” is made of sheet metal painted a bright red. The monumental stabile, as the Paris-based American artist called those of his works that were set on the ground and did not sway in the wind, is 192 inches, or about 488 centimeters, high. Executed in 1973, “Red Curlicue” brought $6.35 million. It too has a tongue-in-cheek touch, conveyed by the curling movement of a tapering metallic sheet, which calls to mind cutouts made by children amusing themselves with paper and scissors. 

Lobster Trap and Fish Tail by ALEXANDER CALDER

This piece by ALEXANDER CALDER (American, 1898-1976) called "Lobster Trap and Fish Tail" is on display at a stairwell at the Museum of Modern Art. Made of painted steel wire and sheet aluminum, this artwork was commissioned by the Advisory Committee in 1939.

ALEXANDER CALDER at the WHITNEY MUSEUM

On view at the WHITNEY MUSEUM are the works of ALEXANDER CALDER. Among the displayed works of art, I found Calder's wire portraits most fascinating. The exhibit runs through February 15, 2009. The Whitney Museum is located at 945 Madison Avenue (Madison Avenue and 75th Street).

From the official website:

"For decades [Calder's] Circus, lent by the artist in 1970 to the Whitney Museum of American Art, has set flight to the imaginations of visiting children and adults. Now the museum is celebrating its genesis in "Alexander Calder: The Paris Years, 1926-1933," an exhibition opening on Thursday that brings the young Calder and the giddy ferment of his artistic circle to life." 

--The New York Times, October 12, 2008

When Alexander "Sandy" Calder (1898–1976), arrived in Paris in 1926, he aspired to be a painter; when he left in 1933, he had evolved into the artist we know today: an international figure and defining force in twentieth-century sculpture. In these seven years Calder's fluid, animating drawn line transformed from two dimensions to three, from ink and paint to wire, and his radical innovations included openform wire caricature portraits, a bestiary of wire animals, his beloved and critically important miniature Circus (1926–31), abstract and figurative sculptures, and his paradigm-shifting "mobiles."

The Whitney has the largest body of work by Alexander Calder in any museum and is proud to be the exclusive American venue for this landmark exhibition, co-organized with the Centre Pompidou.

Alexander Calder's SAURIEN

This is Alexander Calder's sculpture called “Saurien.” A bright orange stabile from 1975, this piece is spectacularly placed underneath the cantilevered corner of a skyscraper on the corner of 57th Street and Madison Avenue.

Born in Philadelphia in 1898, Alexander Calder was the second child of artist parents. His father, sculptor Alexander Stirling Calder, received a number of public commissions and so, throughout Calder's childhood, the family traveled often. Calder studied to become an engineer, but in his early twenties decided to pursue a career as an artist. He began by developing a new method of sculpting: by bending and twisting wire, he essentially "drew" three-dimensional figures in space. He lived in Paris from 1926 to 1933, where he created his famous Cirque Calder and had his first solo gallery shows. In 1933, Calder and his wife, Louisa, moved to Roxbury, Connecticut, where he continued to live and work for the rest of his life. His shift toward abstraction, inspired by a visit to Piet Mondrian's studio in 1930, resulted in his invention of mobiles and stabiles, two bodies of work that he continued to develop in scale. Calder's many permanent public sculptures - in Chicago, Paris, Mexico City, Montreal, Jerusalem, and other cities all over the world - are some of the most beloved and important works of the 20th century.