Emily Coffee

Willette
Birth of the Modern, Section K
7 February 2015
I have an aunt in San Diego who makes jewelry. One day, when I was looking in
her studio for some pliers or something of the sort, I saw a photo pinned to the wall. It
was of a man surrounded by weird wire and metal contraptions. The man himself looked
rather normal, but the sculptures around him were anything but. Some of the sculptures
were twice as big as he was, while others were miniscule in comparison. They all looked
very delicate and weightless, like they could take off in flight at any moment. My aunt
told me the mans name was Alexander Calder, and he was her inspiration because his
studio was just as messy as hers. And she was right, of course, as both rooms were
complete messes.
I didnt really think about Calder that much after that. My dad, who was also a fan
of Calder, would talk about him occasionally, but that was about it. That is, until my aunt
came up from San Diego to Los Angeles to see the Calder exhibit at the Los Angeles
Museum of Contemporary Art. I ended up going along as well, and am very thankful I
did, as that trip changed my opinion about Calders work. He went from being a very
messy man in a photograph to a genius who created beautiful and playful works of art. At
the museum, I fell in love with Calders mobiles, a type of sculpture defined by its
constant movement due to its delicate structure. I was entranced by them and how they
seemed to defy physics and even sometimes gravity with their complicated forms; and
even more so when I learned that Calder was the very first person to ever create

sculptures like this. There were sculptures that moved before he created mobiles, of
course, but never before had there been sculptures that moved in the subtle, purposeless
way that these did.
This trip to LACMA prompted the question that this ISearch paper focuses on:
How did Calder think of the mobile?
I am actually a little ashamed to admit what I did first when starting my research
for this paper. Every semester since 5th grade Ive gotten lectures that Wikipedia is
practically the devil when it comes to sources for research papers, but thats where I went
anyway. I figured that even if I did not cite it directly, it would give me a good general
overview of the topic, which I could later build upon. I also made great use of the
references and external links that the Wikipedia article provided. All of the sites listed
there seemed very reliable and trustworthy. I would have used more of the physical book
references, but those were much harder to find and would have cost me quite a lot of
money to use.
I was delighted to see that one of the recommended references was Calders own
website. It was the first real (a.k.a. not Wikipedia) source that I decided to start
researching with. This website was an amazing resource, as it had all of Calders works
organized in both chronological order and by type of sculpture, as well as a very in-depth
biography. After some digging around I managed to find that Calders mobiles were first
created in 1930. Apparently, the first mobiles lacked the natural movement that the
current mobiles have, and were instead powered by cranks and motors
(http://www.calder.org/). This system did not last very long, and Calder moved on to the
types of mobiles he is better known for today. I thought that this was interesting, as one

of the main things that drew me to Calders work was the fact that though the sculptures
did move, it seemed like an almost accidental movement, as there was no machinery to
cause it.

Lobster Trap and Fish Tail by Alexander Calder, 1939

Another interesting website that I found through the Wikipedia external links list
was the Museum of Modern Arts page on the Calder family. Most of my resources had a
lot to say about Alexander Calder, but not very many of them mentioned Alexander
Stirling Calder, his father, who had a great influence on him. Both Calders father and
grandfather were very traditional sculptors, and his father has sculpted many monuments
for the government (http://www.moma.org/collection/artist.php?artist_id=922) . This
information came as a surprise to me, as Calders work is, for the most part, extremely
abstract. Even his portraits have an abstract feeling to them, due to their being made
completely out of wire. This led me to believe that Calders whimsical mobiles might
have been a sort of rebellion against his father and grandfathers more traditional and
normal ways of sculpting. Of course, according to this page, Calder was also influenced
by the likes of Paul Klee, Joan Miro, and Piet Mondrian, and these artists probably only
encouraged his use of the abstract.

While I did visit quite a few more websites, and made extensive use of all of the
bibliographies I could find, most of the information on each site was very similar to the
last, to the point where all of the websites began to blur together. They almost all
consisted of basic biographies, such as birth date and death date. Thus, I figured I should
try to find a different type of resource, hoping it would bring about some new
information.

I was in the Otis library when I was looking up all of those websites, which
prompted me to try actual printed books as my next research attempt. One of the books
that interested me the most was called The Surreal Calder by Rosenthal. There were
other books that also caught my interest, but none of them were quite as relevant to my
topic as this one. There was one about Calders portraits, and another about his animal
sketches, which both seemed fascinating, but I still opted for one that seemed more
general, as I thought it would be more helpful.
The Surreal Calder ended up being mostly pictures and visuals, which, though it
made sense, was very odd to me. Calders mobile pieces are true to their name in that
they are mobile, and move around quite often. To see them stiff and static in a picture was
a strange experience, and it definitely did not do any of the pieces justice. The
introduction to the book, however, had a lot of really useful information in it. It traced the
path of wit and humor in art through history, which makes sense, as surrealism as a genre
is all about wit and irony. According to the book, Calder was shocked and inspired by the
Surrealists use of found objects (Rosenthal 28). Many of Calders earlier mobiles
incorporated found objects, but he later gave this up and made his sculptures purely with

steel (Lipman 264). He was also inspired by the way they displayed their visions of
nature and the natural world. Surrealist art that depicts nature would show it as
metaphoric and out-of-control. Calder pushed that idea one step further by giving his
sculpture pure pleasure, pure unpredictable movementbeyond reason (Rosenthal 59).
Perhaps this is one of the reasons that Calder decided to create his mobiles. Paintings and
static sculptures could not depict the natural world as he saw it, with all of its movement
and grace. Many of Calders works also have nature-based titles, such as The Crested
Crow, Rat, Red Elephant with Blue Ears, and Spider.

Spider by Alexander Calder, 1939

Another book I picked up at the library, called Alexander Calder, 1898-1976
claimed that Calder began truly experimenting with his mobiles when a commission from
France required him to make sculptures that would be able to be disassembled for
overseas shipping. These works had to be light and simple in order for Calder to save on
shipping costs and for the gallery to be able to re-assemble them (Prather 227). These
books raised a lot of questions and proved a lot of good points as to why Calder started
creating the mobiles. However, especially compared to the websites I had been looking

at, all of the books were rather long and long-winded. Therefore, I decided to move on to
a resource that seemed like a book and a website combined. It was time for me to check
the databases.
Despite my extensive experience with databases, having used them throughout
middle school and high school, it was surprisingly hard for me to find relevant
information that I could actually use. I found plenty of databases on Calders jewelry or
his portraiture; I also found a vast amount of database articles that were only about four
or five sentences long, and provided no insight on the artist whatsoever. After searching
for what seemed like hours, I did manage to find a couple of articles that seemed at least
a little relevant to my topic.
An article called Alexander Calder: Ambitious Young Sculptor of the 1930s by
Joan M. Marter caught my eye almost immediately, as it was in the 1930s when Calder
began making his mobiles. Although Calders work, especially the mobiles, is playful and
witty, this article made sure to establish that Calder was an ambitious young sculptor,
rather than a prankster who tinkered with mechanical gadgets (Marter 2). So while
Calders work does have childish and rebellious feelings to it, he obviously makes his
sculptures to be fine art and not some silly toy to be played with children. It is, I admit,
easy to mistake Calders work as being something for children, especially as most
mobiles made today are actually marketed for children. Not only that, but Calders
mobiles rely heavily on primary colors, much like most childrens toys. However, to my
and many other peoples surprise, Calder did not make the mobiles with children in mind.
Calder created the mobiles for them to be art, first and foremost.

Doing all of this research was really fascinating for a number of reasons. I think
the main one is that I do not actually plan on going into fine art, and only really enjoy it
as a spectator. Trying to find out how and why a fine artist created their signature piece
showed me that the issues and hurdles that fine artists are both very similar and very
different from those of commercial artists, which is what I plan on becoming. Calder
wanted to instill his own personality in a piece of work that still needed to please clients
and get a certain idea across, which are what a lot of commercial artists go through even
today. I found a lot of the issues that Calder went through creating the mobiles very
relatable as an artist, making me feel like these are universal struggles all artists must go
through, regardless of whether they are creating fine art or commercial art. So while this
essay did help me learn more about Calder as an individual artist, it also helped me learn
a lot about art in general.