Alexander Calder was born in 1898 in Lawnton, Pennsylvania into a family of renowned sculptors. He studied engineering at the Stevens Institute of Technology in Hoboken, New Jersey from 1915 to 1919, whereupon he began producing his first artistic works. In 1926, Calder moved to Paris - the centre of the European avant-garde at the time - in order to begin his studies at the Académie de la Grande Chaumière. There he created, built his Cirque Calder using wire, wood and cloth. His first solo exhibition in Paris was held at Pierre Vorms’ Galerie Billiet in 1929. Two years later, Calder joined the artists’ group Abstraction-Création and his focus increasingly turned to abstraction. In 1930, he met Piet Mondrian and other European avant-garde artists who he befriended along the way as he developed a unique, kinetic form of art. Calder began employing an intuitive sense of balance and movement into his pieces to create moveable sculptures. His mobiles, a series of perfectly balanced constructions, challenged the idea that a work of art should be a static object.
Almost as a counterpoint to his light, airy mobiles, Calder later began to create immobile, massive, sometimes monumental constructions out of sheet metal, which Jean Arp dubbed stabiles. As well as sculptural work, Calder produced drawings, paintings, weavings, stage settings and book illustrations. In 1933, Calder returned to his home country, the USA. He went on to represent the USA at the Venice Biennale in 1952, winning the grand prize for sculpture. His work is represented in some of the most prestigious collections of modern art, including the Museum of Modern Art in New York, the Centre Georges Pompidou in Paris, and the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C. Alexander Calder died unexpectedly in November 1976, shortly after opening a major retrospective show at the Whitney Museum in New York.
Exhibitions
SFMOMA - San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, San Francisco, CA, USA
Tate Modern, London, United Kingdom
James Goodman Gallery Inc., New York, NY, USA
Rijkmuseum, Amsterdam, Netherlands
Merano Arte, Meran, Italy
Pace, Menlo Park, CA, USA
Kunstsammlung Nordrhein-Westfalen K20, Düsseldorf, Germany
Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago, IL, USA
Ronchini Gallery, London, United Kindom
LACMA – County Museum of Art, Los Angeles, CA, USA
Leeum Samsung Museum of Art, Seoul, South Korea
The National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC, USA
L&M Arts, New York, NY, USA
L&M Arts, Los Angeles, Venice, CA, USA
Kukje Gallery, Seoul, South Korea
Kennedy Museum of Art, Athens, OH, USA
Gemeentemuseum Den Haag, The Hague, Netherlands
Arkansas Arts Center, Little Rock, AR, USA
The Pace Gallery, New York City, NY, USA
Pace Prints, New York City, NY, USA
Huntington Museum of Art, Huntington, WV, USA
The National Portrait Gallery, Washington, DC, USA
Gagosian Gallery, London, United Kingdom
Nasher Sculpture Center, Dallas, TX, USA
Zadok Art Gallery, Miami, FL, USA
Van de Weghe Fine Art, New York City, NY, USA
Gagosian Gallery, New York City, NY, USA
Polk Museum of Art, Lakeland, FL, USA
GRAM - Grand Rapids Art Museum, Grand Rapids, MI, USA
Bruce Museum, Greenwich, CT, USA
Palazzo delle Esposizioni, Rome, Italy
Art Gallery of Ontario, Toronto, Canada
San Jose Museum of Art, San Jose, CA, USA
Irish Museum of Modern Art - IMMA, Dublin, Ireland
Centre Pompidou - Musée National d´Art Moderne, Paris, France
Norton Museum of Art, West Palm Beach, CA, USA
The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, USA
Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, NY, USA
Philadelphia Museum of Art, Philadelphia, PA, USA
Ricco Maresca Gallery, New York, NY, USA
MoMA - Museum of Modern Art, New York, NY, USA
Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago, Chicago, IL, USA
CEART - Centro de Arte Tomás y Valiente, Madrid, Spain
Pace Wildenstein, New York, NY, USA
Nevada Museum of Art NMA, Reno, NE, USA
Osterman Common Room, Ann Arbor, MI, USA
San Francisco Museum of Modern Art - SFMOMA, San Francisco, CA, USA
PaceWildenstein, New York, NY, USA
Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago, Chicago, IL, USA
The Menil Collection, Houston, TX, USA
Gagosian Gallery - Madison Avenue, New York, NY, USA
Museum Morsbroich, Leverkusen, Germany
Het Mondriaanhuis, Amersfoort, Netherlands
Bechtler Museum of Modern Art, Charlotte, NC, USA
Deutsche Guggenheim, Berlin, Germany
Moderna Museet Malmö, Malmö, Sweden
Kunsthalle Wien, Vienna, Austria
Weserburg | Museum für moderne Kunst, Bremen, Germany
Museum Liner, Appenzell, Switzerland
Musée National d’Art Moderne, Paris, France
Moderna Museet Malmö, Malmö, Sweden
Moscow museum of modern art, Moscow, Russia
Peter Freeman, Inc., New York City, NY, USA
Museum of Modern Art, New York City, NY, USA
Museo Picasso Málaga, Málaga, Spain
Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago (MCA), Chicago, IL, USA
San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, San Francisco, CA, USA
Museum Tinguely, Basel, Switzerland
Kunstmuseum Bochum, Bochum, Germany
Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York City, NY, USA
Fondation de l'Hermitage, Lausanne, Switzerland
Neue Nationalgalerie, Berlin, Germany
New York City, NY, USA
Kunst- und Ausstellungshalle der Bundesrepublik Deutschland, Bonn, Germany
The Columns, Seoul, South Korea
Moderna Museet, Stockholm, Sweden
Museum Tinguely, Basel, Switzerland
Royal Academy of Arts, London, United Kingdom
British Museum, London, United Kingdom
MARTa Herford, Herford, Germany
Museo Guggenheim de Arte Moderno y Contemporáneo, Bilbao, Spain
Städtische Kunsthalle Mannheim, Mannheim, Germany
SMAK Stedelijk Museum voor Actuele Kunst, Gent, Belgium
Whitney Museum of American Art, New York City, NY, USA
Austin Museum of Art, Austin, TX, USA
Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York City, NY, USA
Irish Museum of Modern Art - IMMA, Dublin, Ireland
Victoria & Albert Museum, London, United Kingdom
Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía, Madrid, Spain
Centro de Arte Moderna e Contemporanea della Spezia, La Spezia, Spain
Akademie der Künste, Berlin, Germany
Whitney Museum of American Art, New York City, NY, USA
Whitney Museum of American Art, New York City, NY, USA
The Minneapolis Institute of Arts, Minneapolis, MN, USA
Kunstmuseum Bochum, Bochum, Germany
Neue Nationalgalerie, Berlin, Germany
Kunsthaus Zürich, Zurich, Switzerland
Museum für Neue Kunst, Freiburg, Germany
Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, Boston, MA, USA
Kasseler Kunstverein, Kassel, Germany