Alexander Calder was an American sculptor best known for inventing the mobile, a suspended sculpture of delicately balanced, wire-connected shapes that move and rearrange themselves in response to air currents and touch, a term coined for his work by fellow artist Marcel Duchamp. Trained originally as a mechanical engineer, Calder brought that technical sensibility to sculpture, and he also produced large stationary abstract works he called stabiles, monumental painted steel forms installed in public spaces around the world. His introduction of actual motion and unpredictability into sculpture was a significant departure from the static tradition and opened a new direction later explored by kinetic art.
Facts
BirthplaceLawnton, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States 1 TrainingStevens Institute of Technology, Hoboken, New Jersey (enrolled 1915) 1 In the Other Atlases
Sources
1. Alexander Calder, Wikipedia
Lead, first sentence
was an American sculptor known both for his innovative
Early life, birth sentence, year
Calder was born in 1898 in the Lawnton section of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
Early life, birth sentence, place
Calder was born in 1898 in the Lawnton section of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
Lead, birth date in parentheses
July 22, 1898
Later life, death sentence, year
Calder died unexpectedly in November 1976 of a heart attack, shortly after the opening of a major retrospective show at the Whitney Museum in New York.
Lead, death date in parentheses
November 11, 1976
Early life, paragraph on his college education
He enrolled at the Stevens Institute of Technology in Hoboken, New Jersey, in 1915.
Gender reference
Alexander Calder was an American sculptor best known for inventing the mobile, a suspended sculpture of delicately balanced, wire-connected shapes that move and rearrange themselves in response to air currents and touch, a term coined for his work by fellow artist Marcel Duchamp.
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