Whitney Museum of American Art, New York. Alexander Calder: July 22, 1898–November 11, 1976, Memorial Service. Memorial program. 1976.
Featured Text
Los Angeles County Museum of Art. Calder and Abstraction: From Avant-Garde to Iconic. Exhibition catalogue. 2013.
Jed Perl, Sensibility and Science
L&M Arts, New York. Calder: The Complete Bronzes. Exhibition catalogue. 2012.
Alexander S. C. Rower, Foreword
Calder, Alexander. “Voici une petite histoire de mon cirque.” In Permanence du Cirque. Exhibition Catalogue. Paris: Revue Neuf, 1952.
Featured Text
Musée Picasso, Paris. Calder-Picasso. 19 February–25 August 2019.
Introduction
The Foundation...parents—his father was a sculptor and his mother a painter (figs. 1–2). Because his father, Alexander Stirling Calder, received public commissions, the family traversed the country throughout Calder’s childhood. Calder was encouraged to create, and from the age of eight he always had his own workshop wherever the family lived. For Christmas in 1909,Calder presented his parents with two of his first sculptures, a tiny dog and duck cut from a brass sheet and bent into formation (figs. 3–4). The duck is kinetic—it rocks back and forth when tapped. Even at age eleven, his facility in handling materials was apparent....
10 March 1930
ChronologyCalder 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
and red tile flooring . . . I tried to find Miró, but I guess he was away in the country. I went to a bullfight, and then on to Paris by train.
Calder (front row, third from right) with classmates at Lowell High School, San Francisco, c. 1914
Fall 1909
ChronologyThe Calders return to Philadelphia. Calder attends Germantown Academy for two or three months while his parents search for a house close to New York City.
September 1915
ChronologyCalder begins his studies at Stevens Institute of Technology, Hoboken, New Jersey, where he takes courses that include chemistry, mechanical drawing, shop practice, and surveying, among others.