BRIEF INTRO TO ARTIST ALEXANDER CALDER

Alexander Calder (1898–1976), created over 16,000 works of art in a career spanning fifty years. His works include pen-and-ink drawings, charcoal sketches, etchings, lithographs, oil and gouache paintings, carvings in wood, bronze sculptures, kitchen utensils, jewelry, designs for rugs, tapestries and wallpaper, wire and sheet metal sculptures, articulated toys, hand-cranked and motor-driven sculptures and theater sets.

Trained as an engineer, and drawing upon his need for serious play and his lifelong interest in the cosmos and science, Calder created radically new abstract sculptures we know as mobiles and stabiles in the 1930’s. These monumental commissioned pieces can be found in museums, airports, public parks, outdoor plazas, banks and government buildings throughout the world.

CALDER JEWELRY

Alexander Calder produced approximately 1,800 pieces of jewelry. For Calder, making jewelry was making art, and he displayed and sold his jewelry through trunk shows and gallery exhibits along with his other art works. Calder’s wife, Louisa, received hundreds of his jewelry pieces throughout their marriage, including the necklace shown above. Other recipients included Georgia O’Keefe, Peggy Guggenheim and the wives of his friends and fellow artists such as Duchamp, Miro and Chagall.

CALDER JEWELRY is the first museum show devoted entirely to the hand-made jewelry of Alexander Calder. The exhibit, organized by The Calder Foundation and the Norton Museum of Art in West Palm Beach, consists of approximately 100 objects, and includes earrings, pins, necklaces, bracelets and tiaras. Currently on view at the Philadelphia Museum of Art (top photo from PMA website), July 12-Oct 19, the show will be at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, December 8-March 1, 2009, and then travel to the Irish Museum of Modern Art, Dublin, March 31 - June 22, 2009. Accompanying the show is a beautifully illustrated companion book published by the Calder Foundation.

Go here to find out about a big, beautifullly produced book titled CALDER JEWELRY (released in conjunction with the show), edited by Alexander S. C. Rower and Holton Rower, with contributions by Mark Rosenthal and Jane Adlin and photographs by Maria Robledo. It’s fabulous! Click NPR (bottom photo from NPR website) to read an informative article about the artist Alexander Calder and the Calder Jewelry exhibit written by Susan Stamberg.

NOTE: Alexander Calder is one of the giants of 20th century sculpture, and my favorite artist of all time. In 2006 I created an edition of 100 miniature artist books titled Playing With Calder and each piece includes a tiny, crank-operated kinetic sculpture made of wire.

(my thanks to friend and fellow artist Meredith Arnold for the heads-up on the Calder Jewelry exhibit)