Calder Foundation

El Sol Rojo

Date 1968
Media
Sheet metal, bolts, and paint
Dimensions
84.6' high
Collection
The Aztec Stadium, Mexico City
Map of installed works
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Historical Photos  5
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
Chronology  4
March–April 1967

Mathias Goeritz, an architect, writes to Calder in Saché, inviting him to create a stabile for the 1968 summer Olympic Games in Mexico City; Calder agrees.

8 November 1967

Calder sends final instructions from Saché for El Sol Rojo, the stabile he created for the 1968 summer Olympic Games in Mexico City.

31 December 1967

After spending Christmas in the United States, the Calders arrive in Mexico City, where Calder oversees work on the intermediate maquette for El Sol Rojo.

11 December 1968

The Calders return to Mexico City, where they view El Sol Rojo in place at Aztec Stadium.

Works / Monumental Sculpture 217
Works / Stabile 251
Related Timeline
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.