Calder Foundation
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Object with Yellow Background, 1936

Work

Object with Yellow Background

Date 1936
Media
Plywood, sheet metal, wood, rod, wire, string, and paint
Dimensions
59" × 40" × 33"
Collection
Honolulu Academy of Arts, Hawaii; Gift of Mrs. Theodore A. Cooke, 1962
Panel / Frame, Wall Sculpture
Related exhibitions  1
Leeum, Samsung Museum of Art, Seoul (2013)

Leeum, Samsung Museum of Art, Seoul. Calder. 18 July–20 October 2013.

Solo Exhibition
Chronology  1
7 December 1936–17 January 1937

Calder’s Praying Mantis and Object with Yellow Background are included in the exhibition “Fantastic Art, Dada, Surrealism,” organized by the Museum of Modern Art, New York.

Archive
Works / Panel / Frame 24
Yellow Panel (c. 1936)
Yellow Panel, c. 1936
The Orange Panel (1936)
The Orange Panel, 1936
Petit Panneau Bleu (c. 1936)
Petit Panneau Bleu, c. 1936
Untitled (1937)
Untitled, 1937
Works / Wall Sculpture 40
Mobile with Four Spots (1941)
Mobile with Four Spots, 1941
S and Star (1941)
S and Star, 1941
Constellation (1943)
Constellation, 1943
Constellation (1943)
Constellation, 1943
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.”