Official catalog for Calder exhibit

My friend and fellow artist, Fred Mullet, who knows I’m a big fan of Calder, recently sent me a link to the Whitney Museum of American Art, which is currently hosting an exhibit titled Alexander Calder: The Paris Years 1926-1931.

Ironically, two weeks ago I’d put a hold on several books on Calder and his art at my local library, and one of those books, pictured above, was delivered three days ago and it turns out I’m the first person to check it out! This book is hot off the press, and just happens to be the official catalog for the current exhibit, which opened on October 16th.

Calder’s career spanned 50+ years, but I am particularly interested in the art he created in his early Paris years - namely, his circus, wire sculptures and portraits, toys and free-standing and motorized mobiles. This beautifully produced book covers all those areas in detail, and also includes wood and metal sculptures, circus drawings, gouache and ink paintings, oil paintings and more!

There are photos of Calder’s art that I’d never seen in other publications, and lots of them are in full color. Calder was a master wire worker, and there are 25 wire portraits in the book, caricaturing the likes of Calvin Coolidge, Jimmy Durante and Joan Miro. Other wire sculptures, including ‘Aquarium’ (1929) and the interactive copulating ‘Pigs’ (1930) are simply amazing. Then there are the photos of his circus animals, people and props - incredible articulated sculptures on a very tiny scale.

The text in this 304 page book thoroughly covers Calder’s first five years in Paris, and his artistic life (with images) just prior to his arrival in Paris in 1926.

The exhibit at the Whitney runs through February 15, 2009, then travels to the Centre Pompidou, Musee national d’art moderne in Paris, where it will be on display from March 18 - July 20, 2009.

Click here to view images and a video from the exhibition.

The following information is quoted from the Whitney Museum of American Art Website:

About the Exhibition
On view October 16, 2008 - February 15, 2009

“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.