Alexander Calder - Litho: Derriere le miroir - 1963 - Sold

Lithograph by Alexander Calder. Derriere le Miroir from 1963. Dimensions top (single): H55.5 x w28cm. With the traditional center fold as issued.

Upon purchase, the work can be picked up in 's-Gravenzande (near The Hague (Scheveningen), Rotterdam and Delft and 5 minutes from the beach). The term for collection, if paid in advance, is very long, in other words the buyer can collect the work weeks or even months later and if possible combine it with a visit to one of the above-mentioned cities or the beach. The work can also be sent. Our shipping days are Tuesday and Thursday.

Alexander Calder (July 22, 1898 – November 11, 1976) was an influential American sculptor who became widely known for his innovative mobiles and monumental public sculptures. He introduced movement, abstraction and surrealistic elements into his work, bringing innovation to kinetic art.

Calder came from a family of sculptors: his grandfather Alexander Milne Calder (of Scotland) sculpted the 250 figures of the Philadelphia City Hall in Philadelphia, and his father, Alexander Stirling Calder, was also a renowned sculptor. Calder started out as a self-taught artist and left for Paris in 1926. Here he attended the Académie de la Grande Chaumière and got to know avant-garde contemporaries such as Joan Miró, Hans Arp, Piet Mondriaan, Theo van Doesburg and Marcel Duchamp.
In 1929, while on a trip to New York, Calder met his future wife, Louisa James, a great-niece of the novelist Henry James. They married in 1931.
From a meeting in 1930 with Piet Mondrian in his Paris studio, his first mobiles were created, which apparently were not subject to the laws of gravity. He eventually became famous with these mobiles and in 1931 he had his first major exhibition in Paris. He was a member of the Abstraction-Création artists' group, which influenced his development towards abstraction. In 1934 Calder created his first mobile constructed for outdoor space. He also made his first large abstract sculptures. He called these "stabiles", on Arp's advice, to distinguish them from the mobiles. It was important to him, stimulated by Marcel Duchamp and others, to connect abstraction and movement. For example, in addition to mobiles that were moved by air circulation, he also made images driven by motors. One such "stabile" was Bent propeller, which was exhibited from 1970 at the former World Trade Center in New York.
For the 1937 World's Fair in Paris, he built a mercury fountain in memory of the victims of mercury mining. The fountain has been housed in the Fundació Joan Miró museum in Barcelona since 1976. Calder also manufactured jewelry.
Calder is counted among the most important representatives of kinetic art. The lifelong contact with his friend Joan Miró influenced his artistry.