Water Ballet (Incomplete fountain for 1939 World's Fair)
Date 1939
Media
Programmed fountain
Calder, Alexander. “A Water Ballet.” Theatre Arts Monthly, vol. 23, no. 8 (August 1939).
MagazineCalder is commissioned by Wallace K. Harrison and André Fouilhoux, architects of Consolidated Edison’s pavilion at the 1939 New York World’s Fair, to design a “water ballet” for the building’s fountain. Although water jets are installed around the pavilion, this ballet is never
executed.
In 1937, Calder completed Devil Fish, his first stabile enlarged from a model. He received two important commissions: Mercury Fountain (1937) and Lobster Trap and Fish Tail (1939). His first retrospective was held in 1938 at the George Walter Vincent Smith Gallery in Springfield, Massachusetts, followed by another in 1943 at the Museum of Modern Art in New York.
