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Life period
1946–1952
Type
Chronology 111

See highlights from 1946–1952 on the timeline International Distinction

14–19 June 1952

Calder 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 file
Venice Biennale (1952)
The Big Ear (1943) outside the American Pavilion at the Twenty-sixth Venice Biennale, 1952
The Big Ear (1943) outside the American Pavilion at the Twenty-sixth Venice Biennale, 1952
28 June 1952

Calder accepts the commission from Carlos Raúl Villanueva, whom he met through Sert in 1951, to design an acoustic ceiling for Aula Magna, the auditorium of the Universidad Central de Venezuela. He collaborates with the engineering firm Bolt, Beranek, and Newman,

Cambridge, Massachusetts.

Calder 1966, 240; CF, Calder to Villanueva, 28 June
Acoustic Ceiling (1954)
Acoustic Ceiling, Aula Magna, Universidad Central de Venezuela, Caracas, 1954
Acoustic Ceiling, Aula Magna, Universidad Central de Venezuela, Caracas, 1954
18 July–28 August 1952

Moderne Galerie Otto Stangl, Munich, presents “Alexander Calder / Joan Miró.” The exhibition originated from Calder’s solo show at Galerie Parnass, Wuppertal.

CF, exhibition file
Calder Mobile (1952)
Cover of catalogue for Calder Mobile, Galerie Parnass, Wuppertal, Germany, 1952, showing Rouge, Orange et Bleu (c. 1949)
Cover of catalogue for Calder Mobile, Galerie Parnass, Wuppertal, Germany, 1952, showing Rouge, Orange et Bleu (c. 1949)
5–6 September 1952

Calder performs Cirque Calder in Roxbury.

CF, Calder to Rockefeller; CF, Osborn to Calder, 8 September
Mid-September 1952

Calder arrives in Bonn on 10 September with an invitation from the German State Department to tour West Germany. After two days he travels to Munich, where he meets Bruno Werner, a journalist who reviewed his first Berlin exhibition in 1929. He continues on to Mannheim and

Darmstadt.

CF, passport and German identification card; Calder 1966, 211–12
23–29 September 1952

Calder stays in Berlin.

Calder 1966, 211–12
After 29 September 1952

Calder travels to Hamburg, where he meets the dealer Rudolf Hoffmann. He then goes on to Hanover, Bremen, and Cologne before returning to Bonn.

Calder 1966, 211–12
9–10 October 1952

Calder flies from Bonn to New York.

CF, passport
18 November–9 December 1952

Galerie la Hune, Paris, exhibits “Permanence du Cirque.” The exhibition commemorates the publication of a book by the same title, which includes an essay by Calder, “Voici une petite histoire de mon cirque.”

CF, exhibition file
Winter 1952

Calder presents Cirque Calder in Washington, D.C.; Jean invites “what seemed half of Washington, D.C., to see it.”

Calder 1966, 213
Before 26 December 1952

At the suggestion of John Cage, American composer Earle Brown travels to Roxbury to meet Calder. Pierre Boulez joins him.

CF, project file