Calder Foundation

La Grande vitesse

Date 1969
Media
Sheet metal, bolts, and paint
Dimensions
516" × 660" × 300"
Collection
The City of Grand Rapids, Michigan
Map of installed works
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Historical Photos  2
Related works  3
Chronology  1
14 June 1969

Calder attends the dedication ceremony for La Grande vitesse, a monumental stabile commissioned by the city of Grand Rapids, Michigan, in August 1967. This is the first sculpture to be funded by the public art program of the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA).

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.