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A Merry Can Ballet, 1933

Work

A Merry Can Ballet

Date 1933
Media
Wood, sheet metal, wire, string, tin cans, cloth, and paint
Unusual Project
Historical Photos  4
Calder’s studio at 14 rue de la Colonie (1933)
14 rue de la Colonie studio, Paris, 1933. From top: View of Untitled (1932), A Merry Can Ballet, and a gong.Photograph by Marc Vaux © Bibliothèque Kandinsky, Centre Georges Pompidou, Marc Vaux Collection
14 rue de la Colonie studio, Paris, 1933. From top: View of Untitled (1932), A Merry Can Ballet, and a gong.
Photograph by Marc Vaux
Letter from Calder to James Johnson Sweeney (1934)
Letter from Calder to James Johnson Sweeney illustrating A Merry Can Ballet (1933), 19 July 1934Calder Foundation, New York
Letter from Calder to James Johnson Sweeney illustrating A Merry Can Ballet (1933), 19 July 1934Calder Foundation, New York
Drawing of A Merry Can Ballet (1955)
Drawing of A Merry Can Ballet (1933), 1955Calder Foundation, New York
Drawing of A Merry Can Ballet (1933), 1955Calder Foundation, New York
Drawing of A Merry Can Ballet (1955)
Drawing of A Merry Can Ballet (1933), 1955Calder Foundation, New York
Drawing of A Merry Can Ballet (1933), 1955Calder Foundation, New York
Chronology  1
Spring 1933

Marc Vaux photographs A Merry Can Ballet in Calder’s Paris studio at 14 rue de la Colonie.

Archive
Works / Unusual Project 25
Untitled (c. 1934)
Untitled, c. 1934
Untitled (c. 1934)
Untitled, c. 1934
Ballet in Four Parts (c. 1934)
Ballet in Four Parts, c. 1934
William S. Paley Trophy for Amateur Radio (maquette) (1937)
William S. Paley Trophy for Amateur Radio (maquette), 1937
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.”