Calder: Small Sphere and Heavy Sphere

Gorgeous archival photos capture Calder’s transformation of sculpture with his invention of the mobile

With multiple essays by renowned scholars, artwork and installation images, and a suite of historic photographs of Alexander Calder’s (1898-1976) work taken by Marc Vaux in the 1930s, this catalog traces the breadth of Calder’s innovative practice, leading up to his conception of the mobile in 1931―an unprecedented form of kinetic sculpture that radically altered the trajectory of modern art.

Alexander Calder is one of the most acclaimed and influential sculptors of the 20th century. He is renowned for his invention of wire sculpture―coined by critics as “drawings in space”―and the mobile, a kinetic sculpture of suspended abstract elements whose actual movement creates ever-changing compositions. Also included is a lively series of drawings Calder made at the Bronx and Central Park zoos of animals in motion, which recall his wire sculptures of the same subjects.