Work

Crossed Blades

Date 1967

Media

Sheet metal, bolts, and paint

Dimensions

36'1" high

Collection

Lend Lease Corporation, Australia Square, Sydney

Monumental Sculpture, Stabile

View our map of installed works, Calder Around the World

Historical Photos 2

Crossed Blades (1967) in Australia Square, Sydney, c. 1979Photograph by Max Dupain © Polly Seidler

Crossed Blades (1967) in Australia Square, Sydney, c. 1979

Photograph by Max Dupain

Calder with Crossed Blades, Etablissements Biémont, Tours, France, 1967Photograph by Tony Vaccaro / Tony Vaccaro Archives

Calder with Crossed Blades, Etablissements Biémont, Tours, France, 1967

Photograph by Tony Vaccaro

Featured Text 1

Calder’s International Monuments by Robert Osborn

Osborn, Robert. “Calder’s International Monuments.” Art in America, vol. 57, no. 2 (March–April 1969).

Magazine

Related works 1

Crossed Blades (maquette), c. 1966

Chronology 1

November 1965

Architect Harry Seidler and wife Penelope visit the Calders in Roxbury. Two years later, Calder completes the commission of Crossed Blades for the Australia Square Tower.

Works / Monumental Sculpture 218

Cactus provisoire, 1967

Tom's Cubicle, 1967

The X and Its Tails, 1967

Les Ailes brisées, 1967

Works / Stabile 251

Morning Cobweb (intermediate maquette), 1967

The Kite that Never Flew, 1967

Les Trois ailes II, 1967

Cinq ailes, 1967

Related Timeline

1963–1976

1963–1976 Monumental Works

In 1963, Calder completed construction of a large studio overlooking the Indre Valley. With the assistance of a full-scale, industrial ironworks, he began to fabricate his monumental works in France and devoted much of his later working years to public commissions. Calder died in New York in 1976 at the age of seventy-eight.