That Christmas, he sculpted a dog and a duck out of sheet brass as gifts for his parents. In late 1909 the family returned to Philadelphia, where Calder briefly attended Germantown Academy, then they moved to Croton-on-Hudson, New York. This style of event later became the finale of Calder's miniature circus performances. On January 1, 1907, Nanette Calder took her son to the Tournament of Roses Parade in Pasadena, where he observed a four-horse-chariot race. He used scraps of copper wire to make jewelry for his sister's dolls. The windowed cellar of the family home became Calder's first studio and he received his first set of tools. The Calder family moved from Arizona to Pasadena, California. The children were reunited with their parents in March 1906 and stayed at the Arizona ranch during that summer. In 1905 his father contracted tuberculosis, and Calder's parents moved to a ranch in Oracle, Arizona, leaving the children in the care of family friends for a year. In 1902 he also completed his earliest sculpture, a clay elephant. įour-year-old Calder posed nude for his father's sculpture The Man Cub, a cast of which is now in the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City. Alexander Calder's sister, Margaret Calder Hayes, was instrumental in the development of the UC Berkeley Art Museum. Calder's parents married on February 22, 1895. She moved to Philadelphia, where she met Stirling Calder while studying at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts. Calder's mother was a professional portrait artist, who had studied at the Académie Julian and the Sorbonne in Paris from around 1888 until 1893. His father, Alexander Stirling Calder, was a well-known sculptor who created many public installations, a majority of them in Philadelphia. Ĭalder's grandfather, sculptor Alexander Milne Calder, was born in Scotland, had immigrated to Philadelphia in 1868, and is best known for the colossal statue of William Penn on Philadelphia City Hall's tower. His mother was Jewish and of German descent and his father was Calvinist and of Scottish descent, but Calder himself never practiced any religion and rejected nationalism. When Calder's family learned of the birth certificate, they asserted with certainty that city officials had made a mistake. According to Calder's mother, Nanette (née Lederer), Calder was born on August 22, yet his birth certificate at Philadelphia City Hall, based on a hand-written ledger, stated July 22. His birthdate remains a source of confusion. Calder preferred not to analyze his work, saying, "Theories may be all very well for the artist himself, but they shouldn't be broadcast to other people." Early life Īlexander "Sandy" Calder was born in 1898 in Lawnton, Pennsylvania. Stevens Institute of Technology, Art Students League of New YorkĪlexander Calder ( / ˈ k ɔː l d ər/ J– November 11, 1976) was an American sculptor known both for his innovative mobiles (kinetic sculptures powered by motors or air currents) that embrace chance in their aesthetic, his static "stabiles", and his monumental public sculptures.
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