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Fish ashtray, c. 1935

Work

Fish ashtray

Date c. 1935
Media
Sheet metal and wire
Dimensions
7" × 3 3⁄8" × 3⁄4"
Collection
Calder Foundation, New York
Household Object
Historical Photos  1
Recycled tin can ashtrays and a fish ashtray (c. 1935–50) in the Roxbury house “big room (1950)
Recycled tin can ashtrays and a fish ashtray (c. 1935–50), Roxbury house "big room," 1950Photograph by Herbert Matter © Calder Foundation, New York
Recycled tin can ashtrays and a fish ashtray (c. 1935–50), Roxbury house “big room,” 1950
Photograph by Herbert Matter
Related exhibitions  1
Hauser & Wirth, Somerset (2018)

Hauser & Wirth, Somerset, England. Calder: From the Stony River to the Sky. 26 May 2018–9 September 2018.

Solo Exhibition
Archive
Works / Household Object 55
Ashtray (c. 1935)
Ashtray, c. 1935
Ashtray (c. 1935)
Ashtray, c. 1935
Ashtray (c. 1935)
Ashtray, c. 1935
Lamp (c. 1935)
Lamp, c. 1935
Related Timeline
1930–1936
1930–1936 Shift to Abstraction

Following a visit in October of 1930 to Piet Mondrian’s studio, where he was impressed by the environmental installation, Calder made his first wholly abstract compositions and invented the kinetic sculpture now known as the mobile. Coined for these works by Marcel Duchamp in 1931, the word “mobile” refers to both “motion” and “motive” in French. He also created stationary abstract works that Jean Arp dubbed “stabiles.”