Alexander Calder

Alexander Calder (1898-1976) was one of the most innovative and original American artists of the 20th century. The son and grandson of sculptors, Calder went to Paris in 1926, where he attracted the attention of the avant-garde with his Circus, a colorful, complex activated environment. In 1930, influenced by Mondrian and Miro, he began to experiment with abstract painting and abstract wire constructions, and in 1932 he exhibited his first brightly colored mobiles of painted cutout shapes connected by wires and set in motion by the wind. These buoyant creations, his witty wire portraits and caricatures, and his stabiles -- immobile sculptures -- brought Calder world renown. Many of his late works were huge, delicately balanced mobiles commissioned for public buildings around the globe.