Archive
See highlights from 1946–1952 on the timeline International Distinction
Works
Exhibitions 6
Galerie Louis Carré, Paris. Alexander Calder: Mobiles, Stabiles, Constellations. 25 October–16 November 1946.
Solo ExhibitionBuchholz Gallery/Curt Valentin, New York. Alexander Calder. 9–27 December 1947.
Solo ExhibitionMinistério da Educação e Saúde, Rio de Janeiro. Alexander Calder. September 1948.
Solo ExhibitionNew Gallery, Charles Hayden Memorial Library, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge. Calder. 5 December 1950–14 January 1951.
Solo ExhibitionCurt Valentin Gallery, New York. Alexander Calder: Gongs and Towers. 15 January–10 February 1952.
Solo ExhibitionVenice. XXVI Biennale di Venezia. 14 June–19 October 1952.
Group ExhibitionHistorical Photos 124
Chronology 110
When Sartre visits Calder again at his studio in New York, the artist gives him Peacock, a mobile whose elements are cut from flattened 1940 Connecticut license plates.
Calder 1966, 188–89Thomas Emery’s Sons, Inc., commissions Calder to create a mobile, Twenty Leaves and an Apple, for the Terrace Plaza Hotel, Cincinnati, designed by Gordon Bunshaft of Skidmore, Owings & Merrill.
CF, project fileThe Rime of the Ancient Mariner by Samuel Taylor Coleridge, with twenty-nine illustrations by Calder and an essay by Robert Penn Warren, is published in New York by Reynal and Hitchcock.
CF, project file“Origins of Modern Sculpture” is presented at the Detroit Institute of the Arts and travels to the City Art Museum of St. Louis.
CF, exhibition fileThe Calders take a road trip to Fort Lauderdale, Florida, and visit Edna and Keith Warner.
CF, Warner correspondenceThe Clay Club Gallery, New York, presents “Benefit: Exhibition of Sale of Sculpture to Help Raise Funds for the Sculpture Center” and includes a standing mobile by Calder.
CF, exhibition fileCalder inquires with Willard whether she would be interested in having him make jewelry in gold, a material with which he is interested in working: I’d like to make some stuff in gold—but it makes a larger investment—shall we get into that racket?
CF, Calder to Willard, 12 MayCalder takes his first transatlantic flight from New York to Paris to prepare for the exhibition at Galerie Louis Carré, Paris.
CF, passportThe exhibition at Galerie Louis Carré is delayed and Calder returns to New York.
Calder 1966, 189; MoMA, Calder to Valentin, 6 AugustCalder and Louisa attend the premiere of Pádraic Colum’s play Balloon with mobile sets by Calder, performed at the Ogunquit Playhouse, Maine.
CF, Calder to Warner, JulyIn a series of letters, Calder and Keith Warner begin discussing the terms of Calder creating gold jewelry for Warner’s wife: Would it be a fair proposition if I asked, as recompense, that you buy me an equal amount of gold? I have been wanting to make some more things of gold for Louisa and for
the kids (as “heirlooms”) but never seem to be able to afford the gold.
Calder holds a performance of Cirque Calder in the family’s Roxbury studio for his daughters. I have to show the children how to run it so that they can carry on.
CF, Calder to Warner, 30 AugustCalder’s jewelry is included in the large group exhibition “Modern Jewelry Design” at the Museum of Modern Art, New York. Over the next two years, the show travels to museums in fifteen different cities throughout the United States.
CF, exhibition fileCalder returns to Paris.
CF, passportCalder stays at Hôtel de Versailles, Paris.
CF, object file“4 Modern Sculptors: Brancusi, Calder, Lipchitz, Moore” is presented at the Cincinnati Modern Art Society.
CF, exhibition file“Alexander Calder: Mobiles, Stabiles, Constellations” is on view at Galerie Louis Carré, Paris. Henri Matisse attends the exhibition. Along with photographs by Matter, the catalogue includes two essays—Sartre’s “Les Mobiles de Calder” and Sweeney’s “Alexander
Calder.”
Jean Painlevé films Calder’s works in Paris. It is his second motion picture footage of mobiles in motion.
CF, project fileCalder sails from Le Havre to New York on the John Ericsson.
Calder 1966, 194; CF, passportIrving Penn photographs Calder in Roxbury.
CF, photography file1947
Calder’s work is on view at the Portland Art Museum, Oregon.
CF, exhibition fileThe Mirós and their daughter, Dolores, arrive in the United States. So I drove the LaSalle (open, top down) straight to La Guardia, and got there just in time. So we installed them in a little apt. on 1st Ave. (very nice), and then had a bite at Matisse’s.
CF, Calder to Warner, 15 FebruaryThe San Francisco Museum of Art exhibits Calder’s work.
CF, exhibition fileThe Mirós arrive at the Calders’ home in Roxbury for a visit.
SM, Miró to Sandberg, 7 MarchCalder performs Cirque Calder at his home in Roxbury for the Mirós; Henri Seyrig (Director of the Institut Français d’Archéologie); and Henrique and Helena Mindlin.
SM, Miró to Sandberg, 7 March; CF, Calder 1955–56, 155Mattatuck Historical Society, Connecticut, presents “Alexander Calder.”
CF, exhibition fileMiró celebrates his and Sandra’s birthday with the Calders at their apartment on East Seventy-second Street, New York. He gives Sandra a drawing and she gives the Mirós an ink and collage butterfly. Calder presents Miró with a mobile personage made of animal bones.
ASCR conversation with Mary Calder Rower, 16 November 1997Kunsthalle Bern, Switzerland, presents “Calder, Léger, Bodmer, Leuppi.”
CF, exhibition fileCalder trades the mobile Polygones noirs for Miró’s Femmes et oiseaux dans la nuit, a painting related to Miró’s mural for the Terrace Plaza Hotel.
CF, object fileThe Stable, New Haven, Connecticut, exhibits “Alexander Calder.”
CF, exhibition fileCalder exhibits Explosive Object in the “Exposition de peintures et sculptures contemporaines,” Palais des Papes, Avignon.
CF, exhibition file“Exposition Internationale du Surréalisme” is organized by Breton and Duchamp for Galerie Maeght, Paris. Calder contributes a mobile and produces a lithograph for the catalogue, Le Surréalisme en 1947.
The Calders visit Long Island.
CF, Calder to Warner, 2 July; CF, Calder to Valentin, 15 JulyCarl Van Vechten photographs Calder.
CF, object file“Alexander Calder / Fernand Léger” is presented at the Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam.
CF, exhibition fileHans Richter’s film, Dreams That Money Can Buy, is finally released after being in production since 1945. Two sequences are made with Calder’s collaboration: “Ballet,” the fifth dream, and “Circus,” the sixth dream. The film wins the International Award for Best Original Contribution to the
Progress of Cinematography at the Venice Film Festival.
Calder visits Minneapolis to serve on the jury for the Thirty-third Annual Local Artists’ Exhibition.
CF, Valentin to Calder, 26 September 1947Calder rebuilds the “Big Room” in his Roxbury house. We are rebuilding the room which burned four years ago (where we sat last time you were here). Over the next year, Calder raises the roof about five feet and installs steel sash windows in the southeast wall.
CF, Calder to Warner, 13 December“Alexander Calder” is on view at Buchholz Gallery/Curt Valentin, New York.
CF, exhibition fileCalder’s daughter Mary has a painful molar extracted on Christmas Day. Calder takes the tooth and memorializes it in a silver wire, caged pendant, which he gives to her for Christmas.
ASCR conversation with Mary Calder Rower, 8 August 20071948
Quadrangle Press publishes Selected Fables with etchings by Calder. Jean de La Fontaine is editor.
CF, object fileCalder exhibits his work at the Institute of Contemporary Arts, Washington, D.C.
Lipman 1976, 334Calder meets Burgess Meredith, who later visits the Calders in Roxbury to discuss making a film about Calder and his mobiles. Calder suggests Matter as the cinematographer.
Calder 1966, 197Calder accepts Mindlin’s invitation to visit Brazil.
Calder 1966, 199For the XXIV Biennale di Venezia—the first Biennale of the postwar period—Calder’s Arc of Petals is included in a presentation of Peggy Guggenheim’s collection curated by art historian Giulio Carlo Argan.
CF, exhibition fileThe Calders drive to the Grand Canyon, Death Valley, Reno, and Lake Tahoe, where they spend two weeks with Kenneth and Peggy Hayes. After driving to Berkeley, they leave Sandra and Mary with the Hayes family, and fly to Los Angeles.
Calder 1966, 198–99; ASCR conversation with Mary Calder Rower, 23 October 1997Louisa’s mother, Louisa Cushing James, dies.
Calder 1966, 255Calder and Louisa arrive in Mexico City, where they stay at the Hotel Prince. They visit with Fernando Gamboa, director of the Museo de Bellas Artes, and with filmmaker Luis Buñuel and his family.
Calder 1966, 198–99Calder and Louisa arrive in Panama. I insisted on taking Louisa in a taxi to Panama City, to see the crazy traffic and open buildings I had seen sixteen years before, when a fireman on the S.S. Alexander.
Calder 1966, 198–99Calder and Louisa arrive in Trinidad.
Calder 1966, 198–99; CF, passportFrom Trinidad, the Calders fly to Belém, Brazil. On the plane they meet writer John Dos Passos.
CF, passport; Calder 1966, 199Calder and Louisa arrive in Rio de Janeiro.
CF, passportThe Ministerio da Educaçao e Saude presents “Alexander Calder.” The catalogue includes “Les Mobiles de Calder” by Sartre, “Alexander Calder” by Mindlin, and statements by Breton, Nancy Cunard, and Sweeney.
CF, exhibition fileMuseu de Arte, São Paulo, Brazil, presents “Alexander Calder.”
CF, exhibition fileThe Calders throw a farewell party before departing Rio de Janeiro. Calder improvises decorations and hangs them on the wall. Heitor Dos Praceres (Hector of the Pleasures), a Negro painter and friend of ours, had an excellent samba band, so we decided that they should come sixteen strong …The party took place
in the little house where I worked. Two days before, Lota wrote to Eugenio [Lage] in New York, saying that if he did not see any objection we would have a party there.
The Calders embark from Rio de Janeiro for the United States.
CF, passportIn Berkeley, Calder and Louisa are reunited with their children. The family spends a week with the Hayes family before driving back across country with side trips to Sante Fe, New Mexico, and Texas.
Calder 1966, 204; CF, passport; ASCR conversation with Mary Calder Rower, 23 October 1997Buchholz Gallery/Curt Valentin, New York, presents “Alexander Calder Recent Mobiles, 1948.”
CF, exhibition fileCalder exhibits a work on paper in “A Comparison of Primitive and Modern: 40,000 Years of Modern Art” at the Institute of Contemporary Arts, London.
CF, exhibition file1949
Calder creates mobiles for Symphonic Variations, choreographed by Tatiana Leskova with music by César Franck. The dance is performed in Rio de Janeiro.
CF, object fileMuseu de Arte Moderna, São Paulo, presents “Do Figurativismo ao Abstracionismo” and includes five works by Calder.
CF, exhibition fileUpon returning home from Brazil, Calder crafts a large brooch for Henrique Mindlin’s wife, Helena. The brooch is in the form of a figa—a hand with the thumb curled under the forefinger—a symbol of luck in Brazil. Thank you, thank you, thank you ever so much for the most beautiful figa I have ever
seen. You managed to make many females terribly envious of me, and this makes me oh! so happy! Calder eventually makes at least twenty pieces of jewelry in the figa motif, nearly all as gifts for family and friends.
Calder constructs his most ambitious mobile to date, International Mobile, for the Third International Exhibition of Sculpture, Philadelphia Museum of Art in collaboration with the Fairmount Park Art Association.
CF, exhibition fileCalder builds a house for his mother on the Roxbury property.
CF, photography file; CF, Nanette to Calder, 6 May“Calder” is presented at the Margaret Brown Gallery, Boston.
CF, exhibition fileThe Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, Richmond, presents “Calder & Sculpture Today,” with works by Jean Arp, Alexander Archipenko, Constantin Brancusi, Calder, and Alberto Giacometti, among others.
CF, exhibition fileBuchholz Gallery/Curt Valentin, New York, exhibits “Calder.” The catalogue includes “The Studio of Alexander Calder” by Masson and illustrations by Calder of the objects exhibited.
CF, exhibition file1950
Happy As Larry, a play written by Donagh MacDonagh and directed by Burgess Meredith with sets by Calder, opens in New York at the Coronet Theatre.
CF, project fileThe Calder family sails from New York on the Ile de France and arrives in Le Havre.
CF, passportIn Paris, the Calders rent an apartment for four months on rue Penthièvre from their friend, Médé Valentine.
CF, passport; Calder 1966, 204; CF, Calder to Warner, 5 FebruaryGalerie Maeght, Paris, exhibits “Calder: Mobiles & Stabiles.” Calder, encouraged by Christian Zervos (publisher of Cahiers d’Art) to exhibit at Galerie Maeght, also illustrates the catalogue and the exhibition poster. The Nationalmuseum, Stockholm, purchases a mobile
and the Musée National d’Art Moderne, Paris, purchases Le 31 Janvier.
The Calders travel around France visiting the caves of Lascaux, and Ritou Nitzschke and André Bac in La Roche Jaune, Brittany.
Calder 1966, 206; Lipman 1976, 334The Calders leave Paris and take a train to Antwerp. From there, the family takes a Finnish ship Arcturus to Helsinki.
CF, passportThe Calders visit Maire Gullichsen, who takes them to her villa, Mairea, in Norrmark for a week. From there, one day, we took a five-hour trip to see the Bjoerkenheims, who have one of the few remaining big farms in the north of Finland.
Calder 1966, 206–207The Calders leave from Turku, Finland, and take a boat to Stockholm, arriving the next day. They stay in the Grand Hotel and visit Eric Grate, a Swedish sculptor.
CF, passport; Calder 1966, 208Departing Malmö, Sweden, the Calders take a train through Denmark and Germany, and arrive in Paris.
CF, passport; Calder 1966, 208The Calders depart Paris for Antwerp, set sail the next day on the Europa, and arrive in New York.
CF, passport; Calder 1966, 208Matter photographs Calder’s Roxbury studio and home.
CF, photography fileCalder is selected by the New York Times Book Review as one of the ten best children’s book illustrators of the last fifty years.
New York Times, 12 NovemberMassachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, exhibits “Calder,” a retrospective. Sweeney installs the exhibition while Calder recovers from an automobile accident.
CF, exhibition file; Calder 1966, 2091951
After two years of production, Works of Calder previews at the Museum of Modern Art. The film was directed by Matter and produced and narrated by Burgess Meredith, with music by John Cage.
CF, project fileCalder participates in a symposium, “What Abstract Art Means to Me,” at the Museum of Modern Art in conjunction with their exhibition “Abstract Painting and Sculpture in America.” The idea of detached bodies floating in space, of different sizes and densities, perhaps of different
colors and temperatures, and surrounded and interlarded with wisps of gaseous condition, and some at rest, while others move in peculiar manners, seems to me the ideal source of form.
Calder performs Cirque Calder at the Sert’s home in Lattingtown, New York.
MS, photography collection; CF, correspondence fileInstitute of Contemporary Arts, Washington, D.C., exhibits “Sculptures by Alexander Calder.”
CF, exhibition fileIn Washington, D.C., Calder sees Jean Davidson, a friend he had first met in 1944, and invites him to visit Roxbury.
Calder 1966, 212Eero Saarinen writes to Calder proposing a commission for a sculpture and fountain at the General Motors Technical Center, Warren, Michigan. Calder suggests a fountain without any sculpture.
CF, Saarinen to Calder, 15 August; CF, Saarinen to Tykle, 28 SeptemberCalder presents Cirque Calder in Roxbury.
CF, correspondence fileCage’s score for Works of Calder wins first prize at the Art Film Festival in Woodstock.
CF, project fileContemporary Arts Museum, Houston, presents “Calder–Miró.”
CF, exhibition file1952
Curt Valentin Gallery, New York, exhibits “Alexander Calder: Gongs and Towers.” The catalogue texts are “Alexander Calder’s Mobiles” by Sweeney and “Calder” by Léger, with drawings by Calder of the objects exhibited.
CF, exhibition fileCalder arrives in Paris and stays with Paul Nelson.
CF, passport; CF, Calder and Nelson to Louisa, 19 MarchI must have met Henri Pichette at lunch with Giacometti in Paris. Now he wanted me to decorate his new play: Nucléa
Calder 1966, 209–210Calder designs the sets and costumes for Nucléa, written by Henri Pichette. The costumes include two large silver necklaces and a silver bracelet.
CF, project file; Calder 1966, 209–10Calder and Louisa attend the opening of Nucléa at the Théâtre du Palais de Chaillot, Paris. Directed by Jean Vilar with music by Maurice Jarre, the play is performed by Théâtre National Populaire.
CF, project file; Calder 1966, 210Galerie Maeght, Paris, exhibits “Alexander Calder: Mobiles.”
CF, exhibition fileThe Calders visit Masson and his family in Aix-en-Provence. They ask Masson to find them a house to rent for the following year. From Aix-en-Provence they travel to Varengeville.
Calder 1966, 210–11; Lipman 1976, 334Louisa flies from Paris to New York. Calder leaves Paris on 30 May and arrives in Italy to prepare his works for the XXVI Biennale di Venezia.
CF, passportCalder returns to Paris.
CF, passportCalder flies from Paris and arrives in New York.
CF, passportCalder represents the United States in the XXVI Biennale di Venezia. Sweeney installs the exhibition and writes a short text for the exhibition catalogue. Calder wins the Grand Prize for sculpture.
CF, exhibition fileBibliography 5
1946
Galerie Louis Carré, Paris. Alexander Calder: Mobiles, Stabiles, Constellations. Exhibition catalogue. 1946.
Jean-Paul Sartre, Les Mobiles de Calder
Solo Exhibition Catalogue1950
Dreier, Katherine S., and Marcel Duchamp. Collection of the Société Anonyme (New Haven: Yale, 1950).
Marcel Duchamp, Alexander Calder
Group Exhibition Catalogue1951
Calder, Alexander. “What Abstract Art Means to Me: Statements by Six American Artists.” The Museum of Modern Art Bulletin, vol. 18, no. 3 (Spring 1951).
MagazineSweeney, James Johnson. Alexander Calder. New York: Museum of Modern Art, 1951.
Monograph1952
Calder, Alexander. “Voici une petite histoire de mon cirque.” In Permanence du Cirque. Exhibition Catalogue. Paris: Revue Neuf, 1952.
General Reference