Art Beat – Alexander Calder: Poetry in Motion

– By Mary Brennan Gerster –

For a visual escape from the economic doldrums I suggest two museum exhibits devoted to the works of Alexander Calder. The show at the Whitney focuses on works created in Paris between 1926 and 1933, while the show at the Metropolitan is devoted to his lesser-known, but brilliant, jewelry creations.

The journey that led to the creation of Calder’s famous mobiles is told through his works while living in Paris. Calder’s father and grandfather were both sculptors, his mother was a painter, and both his parents had been educated in Paris. His sister Peggy was born there as well, so Paris as a destination for Sandy Calder was not unexpected.

He didn’t initially follow in the footsteps of his illustrious family, choosing instead to attend Stevens Institute of Technology in Hoboken, New Jersey. Calder earned an engineering degree in 1919, technical knowledge that would later play a major role in his artwork.

In 1922, Calder went to sea, toiling in the boiler room of a ship sailing from New York to San Francisco via the Panama Canal. He experienced a sunset so stunning that it left him “with a lasting sensation of the solar system.” In his drawings and mobile sculptures you are aware of that concept of the solar system as you note the interconnecting spheres and forms floating in relation to one another.

Upon his return he attended the Art Students League in New York, where he studied life drawing and pictorial composition with John Sloan, portrait painting with George Luks and figure painting with William Pene duBois. The paintings in the Whitney exhibition show the strong impact these teachers, part of the Ash Can School or the Eight, had on his style. Six-Day Bike Race (1924) would be at home with any of their works. Circus Scene (1926), an anniversary gift for his sister and her husband, is a precursor to Calder’s Circus.

He did illustrations for the New Yorker and The New York Times and the National Police Gazette. He also published a booklet (in the show) called Animal Sketching (1926), based on his drawings at the Central Park and Bronx Zoos.

In 1926, at the age of 27, Calder headed to Paris, the center of the art world. Initially, his mother sent him $75 a week to support himself. The years in Paris are the theme of the Whitney show.

There are many wire portraits and they are made even more wonderful by the dramatic lighting of designer Jennifer Tipton. The lights create shadows and reflections that mirror the portraits themselves. These are the start of his “drawing in space”. The simplicity of each belies the genius behind them. His most noted works at the time were the portraits of chanteuse Josephine Baker, who was the rage in Paris. Mondrian, Man Ray, Picasso and Henri Laurens also paid tribute to her. Four of Calder’s portraits are here, and they are theatrical silhouettes of this star.

Portraits of Jimmy Durante (1928), John D. Rockefeller (1927), and friends Eduard Penkala (1929) and Margie McKean (1930), as well as more general caricatures of The Hostess (1928) and Le Policeman (1930) will enchant you.

A visit to the studio of Piet Mondrian altered his direction. “It is more or less as a direct result of my visit to Mondrian’s studio in 1930 and the sight of his colored rectangles on the wall that my work in the abstract would come to be based on the idea of interstellar relationships.” It’s worth noting that, when Calder suggested that Mondrian make the shapes move, Mondrian was furious.

His most noted and popular work is surely Calder’s Circus, which has been an iconic piece at the Whitney ever since its purchase in 1983. Calder created each working piece from bits of wire, leather, string, and sewn fabric over a five-year period. The suitcases he used to transport the pieces from one venue to another are here (initially two cases expanded to five). He was ringmaster, narrator and puppeteer.

This was the original “performance art”. Calder had friends sit on crates as he manipulated each figure just as they would in the real circus. It was at such a performance on Christmas Day in 1949 that he met his wife, Louise James (they were married for 45 years). At that performance Isamu Noguchi cranked the gramophone. These were so socially popular that one arranged for a performance through the New York Junior League.

The paintings, drawings, mobiles and stabiles (so named by Jean Arp), portraits and circus all provide a unique window into the growth and talent of Calder beyond the cliché. Enjoy his technical and artistic brilliance along with that rare commodity, humor.

“Alexander Calder The Paris Years, 1926 - 1933” is at the Whitney Museum through February 15. The museum is located at Madison Avenue at 75th Street. For more information, call 212-570-3600 or go to www.whitney.org.