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Artists Gallery, New York, includes an oil painting by Calder in a group exhibition. Murdock Pemberton, the art critic for the New Yorker, comments on the exhibition: A. Calder, too, we think is a good bet.

While renting a room in the apartment of Alexander Brook, assistant director of the Whitney Studio Club, Calder embellishes the Brook children’s “Humpty Dumpty Circus.” He adds movement and articulation to the set of store-bought toys, making an elephant that could “go round

Calder sketches a human dissection at Physicians and Surgeons Hospital. I drew for several hours and subsequently painted The Stiff . . . I went to a party that evening and kept asking if I did not smell of forma(h)ldehide—my hair, particularly. They said “no”—but

Calder exhibits The Stiff in the Tenth Annual Exhibition of the Society of Independent Artists at the Waldorf-Astoria, New York.

Calder exhibits an oil painting at the Whitney Studio Club Eleventh Annual Exhibition of Paintings and Sculpture by Members of the Club, Anderson Galleries, New York.

Calder moves into a tiny, one-room apartment at 249 West Fourteenth Street. There he makes his first wire sculpture, a sundial in the form of a “rooster on a vertical rod with radiating lines at the foot” to demarcate the hours.

Animal Sketching, a drawing manual written by Calder with reproductions of 141 of his brush drawings, is published by Bridgman Publishers in New York and The Bodley Head in London.

Calder exhibits The Horse Show in an exhibition on the subject of the horse at the Anderson Galleries, New York, curated by Karl Freund.

With the help of his former teacher, Clinton Balmer, Calder signs on to the crew of the Galileo, a British freighter sailing for Hull, England. He works as a laborer, painting the exterior of the ship.

Calder arrives in Hull, spends one night, and takes the noon train to London.

Calder arrives in London and stays four nights with Bob Trube, his fraternity brother from Stevens.

Calder leaves England, taking the 10 a.m. train from Victoria Station to New Haven and the ferry to Ville de Dieppe in France. He arrives in Paris and calls on Trube’s father at the Hôtel de Versailles, 60 boulevard de Montparnasse. [Trube] had written his dad to look out for

At the Café du Dôme, a meeting place for artists and their dealers, Calder recognizes American painter Arthur Frank, an acquaintance from New York, and meets British printmaker Stanley William Hayter, whose wife he knew from the Art Students League.

Calder enrolls in drawing classes at the Académie de la Grande Chaumière.

Calder establishes a studio at 22 rue Daguerre.

Calder is hired to leave France for a quick round-trip voyage on the SS Volendam Holland America Line; he sketches life on board the ship for the Student Third Cabin Association’s poster and advertising brochure.

Calder arrives in New York on the SS Volendam.

Calder arrives at Boulogne-sur-Mer, France, on the SS Volendam.

Calder travels by train to Paris from Boulogne-sur-Mer.

Calder meets Lloyd Sloane, an advertising executive, who introduces him to staff at Le Boulevardier, including Marc Réal, artistic advisor. Several of Calder’s drawings are published in Le Boulevardier over the next few months.

Calder meets a Serbian toy merchant who encourages him to make mechanical toys for mass production.

Through Hayter, Calder meets José de Creeft, a Spanish sculptor living on rue Broca. De Creeft suggests to Calder that he submit his toys to the “Salon des Humoristes.”

Calder performs Cirque Calder for Mrs. Frances C. L. Robbins, a patron of young artists. On her recommendation, English novelist Mary Butts comes to see it and in turn sends Jean Cocteau to a performance.

Calder exhibits toys in the “Salon des Humoristes” at Galerie de la Boétie, Paris.

Réal brings Guy Selz and the circus critic, Legrand-Chabrier, to see Calder perform Cirque Calder. Legrand-Chabrier admires Calder’s work and writes several articles on the Cirque. Oh, these are stylized silhouettes, but astonishing in their miniature resemblance,

Calder renews his French identity card.

Galleries of Jacques Seligmann and Company, Paris, exhibits animated toys by Calder.

The New York Herald, Paris, publishes an article about Calder and his decision to make toys: I began by futuristic painting in a small studio in the Greenwich Village section of New York. It was a lot different to engineering but I took to my newfound art immediately. But it seemed that

Calder returns to New York and stays with his parents at 9 East Eighth Street.

Calder travels to Oshkosh, Wisconsin, to contract with Gould Manufacturing Company. He designs prototypes for a series of plywood animal Action Toys.

Calder returns to New York and rents a room at 46 Charles Street where he gives Cirque Calder performances.

Hawes establishes a couture house at West Fifty-sixth Street in New York. Calder occasionally designs neckpieces and other accessories for her clothing.

The French Consulate, New York, grants Calder a visa.

Calder arrives at Le Havre after a voyage from New York on the De Grasse. He returns to Paris, where he rents a small building behind 7 rue Cels to use as his studio. When I returned to Paris in Nov. 28 I was a “wire sculptor” as I put it, also “le roi du fil de fer.”

At the Café du Dôme, Paris, Calder sees his acquaintance, painter Yasuo Kuniyoshi, and meets “a small man in a bowler hat,” who he learns is painter Jules Pascin, a friend of Stirling’s.

Calder visits Miró at his Montmartre studio, a sort of metal tunnel, a kind of Quonset hut. Miró has no paintings in the studio, but he shows Calder a collage, a big sheet of heavy gray cardboard with a feather, a cork, and a picture postcard glued to it. There were probably a few

Calder exhibits Romulus and Remus and Spring at the Salon de la Société des Artistes Indépendants, Paris. The public reaction is a mixture of confusion and delight. One critic remarks, At first, I believed that electricians had forgotten their electrical wire in this room, but

In writing about his own history of wire sculpting, Calder notes a change in his approach to the medium: Before, the wire studies were subjective, portraits, caricatures, stylized representations of beasts and humans. But these recent things have been viewed from a more

Galerie Billiet-Pierre Vorms, Paris, exhibits “Sculptures bois et fil de fer de Alexandre Calder.” Pascin writes the preface for the exhibition catalogue:
By some miracle, I became a member of a group of Aces of American Art, a Society of very successful painters and

In a review of Calder’s solo show at Galerie Billiet-Pierre Vorms, Paris, the phrase “drawing in space” is coined to describe Calder’s wire sculptures. Horses rear up, riders brace themselves, dancers throw to the sky legs more rigid than doorbell wires. It looks like a drawing in space. On

Sacha Stone, a German photographer, sees Calder perform Cirque Calder at the rue Cels studio. He suggests that Calder perform and exhibit in Berlin.

The German Consulate, Paris, stamps Calder’s passport.

Calder leaves Paris with Stone and takes a train to Berlin to make arrangements for an exhibition.

Calder returns to Paris to gather works to exhibit in Berlin.

Calder travels back to Berlin to prepare his exhibition.

I have had 2 large circus parties since coming back to Paris. At one of them we had Paul Fratellini, one of the famous clowns at the Cirque d’Hiver. It was quite a swell party—and I am making one of the toys in a size large enough for him to use in the Cirque d’Hiver.

Calder exhibits a wire sculpture at the Salon des Tuileries, Paris.

Calder performs Cirque Calder in the studio of Tsuguharu Foujita, a painter and well-known denizen of Montparnasse. Foujita plays a drum to accompany Calder’s performance. Man Ray and Kiki are among the guests in attendance.

Calder occupies his father’s studio on 11 East Fourteenth Street. He visits his family in Pittsfield, Massachusetts.

Calder visits Louisa and her older sister, Mary, at Eastham on Cape Cod. Calder was a perfect guest. He mended everything in sight and kept us in gales of laughter all day long.

Calder performs Cirque Calder at Hawes’s couture house, 8 West Fifty-sixth Street, New York.

Calder performs Cirque Calder at art patron Mildred Harbeck’s apartment, 306 Lexington Avenue, New York.

Calder stays with his friend, book designer Robert Josephy, at Beekman Place and Fiftieth Street. Josephy was very enthusiastic over my circus. This encouraged me and while at his house, I worked on it very hard. He helped me. We made the chariot race and the lion tamer,

After the New Yorker announces that performances of Cirque Calder can be arranged through the Junior League Entertainment Center at Saks Fifth Avenue, Calder is hired by Newbold Morris to perform in his Babylon, Long Island, home; Isamu Noguchi operates a phonograph providing the music.

Fifty-Sixth Street Galleries, New York, exhibits “Alexander Calder: Paintings, Wood Sculpture, Toys, Wire Sculpture, Jewelry, Textiles.” Calder performs Cirque Calder at the show’s vernissage on 1 December.

For her birthday, Calder gives Hawes a wire “chastity belt” that spells out her name along with the French café slogan “ouvert la nuit” (open at night).

Calder performs Cirque Calder in the home of Aline Bernstein on Park Avenue. Noguchi is present, as is Thomas Wolfe, who later incorporates a wry fictionalized account of the event into his novel, You Can’t Go Home Again.

At a party thrown by Walter Damrosch at NBC Studios, Calder approaches Aline Fruhauf, the cartoonist for the magazine Top Notes. He was a nice young man, quiety mirthful, distinguished from among the other white shirt-fronted gentlemen of the party by a

Calder performs Cirque Calder on New Year’s Eve at the home of Jack and Edith Straus on West Fifty-seventh Street, New York.

Two works by Calder are exhibited at the Salon de la Société des Artistes Indépendants, Paris.

Calder stays in the apartment of his friend Paul Nitze at 112 East Fortieth Street. At Nitze’s request, he performs Cirque Calder.

Harvard Society for Contemporary Art, Cambridge, Massachusetts, exhibits “Wire Sculpture by Alexander Calder.” Calder performs Cirque Calder for the faculty and students on 31 January.

Calder performs Cirque Calder at artist Margarett Sargent’s house, 205 Commonwealth Avenue, Boston.

Calder sails for Spain on the Spanish freighter Motomar. The ship docks briefly in Málaga and Calder explores the town. Two days later, Calder debarks in Barcelona. I went to the Hotel Regina, in a little room up somewhere high. It was then I decided that I liked white walls

Calder rents a studio at 7 Villa Brune.

Calder receives an invitation from Rupert Fordham to sail to L’Île Rousse in Corsica. They visit Antoni and Calvi on the west coast.

Calder performs Cirque Calder in his studio at 7 Villa Brune. For seating, he invites spectators to bring their own boxes.

Louisa James visits Calder in Paris.

Calder performs Cirque Calder in his studio at 7 Villa Brune.

In need of money to pay rent, Calder charges admission to performances of Cirque Calder. I bought planks, pinched some boxes, and made bleachers. I handled thirty people an evening on, I believe, four evenings. At the end of my professional run, the concierge came and said the

On the advice of Frederick Kiesler, a Viennese architect, Calder invites Le Corbusier, Karl Einstein, Fernand Léger, Piet Mondrian, and Theo van Doesburg to a presentation of Cirque Calder at 7 Villa Brune. To avoid conflicts, Kiesler insists that Calder send a telegram

Van Doesburg and his wife, Pétronella [Nelly], attend a performance of Cirque Calder. I got more of a reaction from Doesburg than I had from the whole gang the night before.